{"id":261381,"date":"2026-01-01T09:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T09:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/261381\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T09:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T09:18:08","slug":"dublins-rotunda-hospital-transferring-women-as-far-as-drogheda-due-to-bed-shortage-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/261381\/","title":{"rendered":"Dublin\u2019s Rotunda Hospital transferring women as far as Drogheda due to bed shortage \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a Monday evening in mid-December and a woman was in labour in the Rotunda Hospital<\/a> when the healthcare facility learnt there were no neonatal beds<\/a> available in Dublin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Consequently, the woman was transferred via ambulance to deliver her baby in Drogheda<\/a> hospital, says Prof Se\u00e1n Daly, master of the Rotunda.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing that a bit more frequently now,\u201d he says of the need to transfer women to other hospitals. \u201cIn general, the reason people are transferred is because we believe they need delivery. And when it comes to delivery, you need to have space for the baby.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re opening up a postnatal ward, ward 14, and we will put three or four babies up there and then we will transfer babies into these spaces. So it\u2019s really, really acutely busy at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not just the last month of the year that\u2019s busy. In fact, the number of babies delivered at the hospital is up 2 per cent, year on year. October marked the highest number of monthly deliveries in 10 years, when it delivered 804 babies.<\/p>\n

In the first 11 months of the year, Daly says the Rotunda delivered 1,100 more babies than the National Maternity Hospital<\/a> at <\/b>Holles Street, and almost 1,700 more babies than the Coombe. In 2026, the hospital will deliver its millionth baby.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything is a little more complex here. We had a multidisciplinary team meeting this morning; there were eight sets of twins presented at that meeting. There\u2019s currently 31-week twins being delivered on the labour ward and there\u2019s no neonatal bed in Dublin,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

The number of twins being born in the hospital is increasing at around 140 sets per year, Daly says, which he attributes to mothers giving birth at a later stage in life.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Women to face curbs on private maternity care access from next weekOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a woman gets older she is more likely to have a twin pregnancy spontaneously. And obviously with IVF you\u2019re more likely and there are an increasing number of couples accessing assisted reproductive services,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

But twins can come with increased risk for both babies and mother, he adds, which has a knock-on effect on the complexity of care delivered to these patients.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ones that are high risk are the ones that share a placenta. That can be complicated by something called twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome [unequal blood flow],\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a very complex case here that required laser treatment. You put in a foetoscope and we ran a laser fibre in and you essentially divide the placentas into two so one can\u2019t take from the other.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other thing that\u2019s factoring into these capacity difficulties, Daly says, is that treatment has advanced and medicine is now able to care for much more vulnerable babies than they would have previously.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwenty years ago, we didn\u2019t really consider babies viable unless they weighed more than about 700 grammes and they were 25 weeks or more,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we\u2019re looking at 22-weekers. Obviously, if you can imagine that for a pregnancy and a baby to develop properly it needs to be in its mother\u2019s womb for 40 weeks. If you\u2019re born at 25 weeks, you need 15 weeks of care. And it\u2019s incredibly complex.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NeonatalNeonatal intensive care at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin. Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill <\/p>\n

Daly is critical of the infrastructure currently in place in the Rotunda\u2019s neonatal unit, describing it as a \u201chuge room\u201d with all the babies lined out around it. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey should all be in individual spaces because of the risk of the spread of infection and the ability of facilities for parents to be with their baby and not be bumped into.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hospital has sought planning permission to construct a critical-care wing, but it is currently in the appeals process after objections were made.<\/p>\n

Daly says he subsequently wrote to 46 politicians \u2013 including Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill \u2013 calling for changes to the planning system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is national infrastructure. There are four level-three neonatal units in the country \u2013 three in Dublin and one in Cork. None of the ones in Dublin are adequately structurally designed to care for those babies. We desperately need those facilities,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Almost \u20ac150m spent on preparations for new National Maternity HospitalOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

What will happen if the appeal doesn\u2019t go the way he wants? \u201cThere is no plan B,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re not moving anywhere and so it\u2019s then, how do we cope with demand?\u201d<\/p>\n

The hospital\u2019s location in north inner city Dublin is one of its key strengths, according to Daly, who says the Rotunda is able to collaborate with the nearby Mater hospital to meet the needs of the population it serves.<\/p>\n

David Begg resigned as chairman of the board of the Mater<\/a> following a tense meeting with the Minister in September, but Daly is quick to defend the institution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Minister is elected; she has a job to do. I don\u2019t know what went on it that room but I know she left, according to the media. And then on the other hand you have to honestly think, is the Mater not doing a good job?\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know there\u2019s a legacy debt there but I suppose they might reasonably argue that there was legacy underfunding. The Mater is a public hospital and it works with the same population that we do and it does a phenomenal job. It\u2019s a phenomenal hospital, in my view.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0These three Ministers are doing something welcome \u2013 making enemiesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Maternal medicine is not the only service the Rotunda provides; it is now also the centre for benign gynaecological referrals in the north Dublin area. It receives 1,400 referrals per month, but only has the capacity to treat 850-900 cases, meaning waiting lists can be long.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have the physical space,\u201d says Daly. \u201cOnce we have access to the surgical hub [in north Dublin], that will help, and we are developing [facilities at] Dominick Street which will increase our capacity hugely. But the problem is everything takes longer than it should, or you think it should.\u201d <\/p>\n

Endometriosis, a potentially debilitating condition in which cells similar to the lining of the uterus grow in other parts of the body, has received significant public attention but Daly says it is not the only gynaecological condition that needs service improvement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of benign gynaecology that needs more service; there\u2019s a whole cohort of women who have urogynaecology difficulties. It\u2019s a matter of trying to prioritise everything \u2013 uterovaginal prolapse, stress urinary incontinence. There are multiple opportunities,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Carroll MacNeill had asked the hospital to deal with an additional 10 endometriosis cases in the last quarter of 2025, something Daly describes as a \u201cstruggle\u201d due to a shortage of beds, though achieveable. <\/p>\n

The long-time physician is almost half way through his tenure as master of the hospital. He appears proud of the work that has been done under his leadership to date, but there are a number of key issues he wants to be completed by the time he hands back the title.<\/p>\n

He adds: \u201cIt\u2019s about developing the campus, getting more beds and taking better care of people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a Monday evening in mid-December and a woman was in labour in the Rotunda Hospital when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[3496,18,135,7005,60,19,17,5002,32994,32995],"class_list":{"0":"post-261381","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-department-of-health","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-hospitals","12":"tag-hse","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-jennifer-carroll-macneill","16":"tag-national-maternity-hospital","17":"tag-rotunda-hospital"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115819099084251560","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}