Minister
seeks report on
decision to suspend home births scheme
Lorna Siggins
The Minister for Health, Mr Martin, has expressed "surprise"
at a Western Health Board decision to cut funding for the Home
Birth/Domino scheme in
Galway.
The Minister has sought a report from the Western Health Board
(WHB) on the decision to suspend the scheme so that it can fund
the appointment of a
consultant neonatologist at University College Hospital, Galway
(UCHG).
While he accepted the importance of the consultant appointment,
the Minister has said that his Department was not informed of
the decision by the health
board to prioritise funding in this way. The Minister's views
were conveyed to a public meeting in Galway on Tuesday night,
at which considerable anger was expressed over the suspension
of the scheme. The Domino scheme has been run in the WHB area
since 1999 by a team of midwives based at UCHG, who carry out
all the necessary checks and tests that would otherwise be conducted
by a consultant gynaecologist.
The vast majority of women choose to have their babies delivered
in hospital, with a small number opting for a home birth. Under
the system, the midwife remains with the pregnant woman in her
home throughout labour and only arranges for admission to UCHG
when labour is
well advanced. Immediate access to a gynaecologist is available
should the need arise, but with a normal pregnancy the baby is
delivered by the midwife. After the birth, the woman and her baby
are returned home with the minimum stay in hospital.
In 1999, 21 women chose the Domino option. This rose to 83 in
the second year, while last year 116 women availed of the service.
The number of home births over the same period rose. Last year,
there were more than 3,000 births in total at UCHG and 160 home
births.
At Tuesday's meeting, organised by Parents for Choice in Birthing,
it was pointed out that the annual cost at €372,000 was not
enough to fund a consultant and ancillary services.
The group is seeking a meeting with the Minister and has planned
protests for next Monday's WHB meeting and for April 12th. The
board was invited to the public meeting but did not send a representative.
It said yesterday that the adopted service plan for 2003 "agreed on the need to appoint a consultant neonatologist
to meet both the volume and complexity of cases presenting, and
the transfer of funding from
domiciliary home care services to effect this."
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