{"id":599908,"date":"2026-07-23T07:05:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T07:05:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/599908\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T07:05:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T07:05:25","slug":"about-150-women-turned-away-for-private-care-by-national-maternity-hospital-consultants-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/599908\/","title":{"rendered":"About 150 women turned away for private care by National Maternity Hospital consultants \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

About 150 women have been turned away for private care by consultants at the National Maternity Hospital<\/a> (NMH) over the last six weeks, as private maternity services begin to end in Irish hospitals<\/a>. <\/p>\n

A senior clinician at one of the biggest maternity hospitals in the country said it was only the second time in almost 30 years that he could recall doctors at Holles Street refusing mothers who wanted to go private. <\/p>\n

Declan Keane, clinical director and former master at the NMH, said the end of private maternity care in publicly funded hospitals was \u201ckicking in already\u201d and \u201cwill be a real problem\u201d over the next five years. <\/p>\n

Since January, new public-only contracts for consultants have come into effect which ban doctors from carrying out private work within public hospitals. Signing the new contract was voluntary for consultants on older public-private contracts, but compulsory for younger staff who have qualified since 2023. <\/p>\n

Keane told The Irish Times that three senior consultants at his hospital had retired in the last number of years and been replaced by public-only consultants. More retirements are expected over the coming three years. Just 12 out of 25 consultant obstetricians are on contracts that still allow them to provide private maternity care. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first time, unfortunately, the number of parents wishing to come to the NMH for private care is higher than the number of consultants we have to take on that number of women,\u201d Keane said.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Rotunda Hospital\u2019s clash with Coalition over private maternity care deepensOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Most consultants can take between three and five private patients a week. The former master said that, according to an audit by the hospital, in the last six weeks almost 150 women who wanted to book private care with specific consultants had been told they cannot be accommodated and that the hospital\u2019s capacity for private care has reduced. Keane said this was not a formal hospital policy but a decision informed by the capacity of individual consultants. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe majority of these are first-time mothers who want to book with a certain consultant, and that consultant can\u2019t take them,\u201d Keane said. <\/p>\n

He added that some women may choose to book a private consultant at either the Rotunda or the Coombe, or they may choose semi-private care at the NMH. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese women will still get excellent care, but that choice [to go private] will no longer be available to them,\u201d Keane said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s awful \u2013 we feel terrible about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn all my time here the only other occasion where Holles Street ever had to turn women away for private care was in 2004.\u201d <\/p>\n

That year, the NMH suffered severe capacity issues due to overcrowding which resulted in women being warned that the hospital could be \u201cbooked out\u201d between May and September. <\/p>\n

Keane said the pressure on private care had unfolded \u201cexactly as I thought it would\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know it was going to kick in this quickly, I would say it will be a real problem within the next five years. Already we are starting to turn people away.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NMH did not support the Rotunda<\/a>\u2019s now-abandoned decision to allow public-only consultants to continue offering private care, but Keane said he and his colleagues were seeking a derogation for maternity services from the Government\u2019s plan to end private practice in public hospitals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"About 150 women have been turned away for private care by consultants at the National Maternity Hospital (NMH)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":599909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,52,18,13,14,6,7005,19,17,11,12,15,16,32994,5,32995,7,8],"class_list":["post-599908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-dublin","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-hospitals","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-national-maternity-hospital","tag-news","tag-rotunda-hospital","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116968025438428839","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599908","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=599908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}