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THE HSE IS updating its guidance for maternity units to make it clear that partners are permitted to be present through labour and birth, including when women are induced, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has said.
There has been ongoing campaign over the past number of months to have restrictions at maternity units lifted.
Donnelly yesterday said each maternity unit in Ireland was being contacted to inform them of the guidance on the lifting of maternity restrictions in hospitals nationwide.
In guidance issued on 30 April, the HSE advises allowing partners to accompany a woman during labour and childbirth. Partners should also be permitted to attend the 20-week scan and other appointments if deemed necessary.
However, maternity hospitals and units set individual restrictions, so exclusions on partners attending scans and the early stages of labour have remained in place in some hospitals.
In a tweet this afternoon, Donnelly confirmed that an assessment from the HSE yesterday found that 14 of Ireland’s 19 maternity units are “fully compliant” with national policy regarding the 20-week scan, birth and neonatal.
Donnelly said the five units that are not compliant “all have at least issues with daily visitation and all five are part of a general hospital, rather than being a standalone maternity unit”.
These will be engaged with further by the HSE to work through solutions, he said.
The health minister noted that in one hospital where there is an issue with partners attending scans due to space constraints, “the scanner is being moved so that partners can be permitted from next week”.
“The HSE is updating guidance again to make it very clear to maternity units that partners are to be present right throughout labour and birth – and that includes women who are induced,” Donnelly said.
Clarifying this further, HSE Chief Clinic Officer Dr Colm Henry said today that when HSE guidance states partners should be able to be present for labour, it means from induction onwards, not just the later stages of labour.
Dr Henry said the HSE is clarifying that for hospitals now.
Donnelly said:
“I welcome that weekly reviews of the situation will be conducted between the HSE and all maternity units. I share the frustration and the anguish of the many pregnant women and their partners about what some of them has been experiencing.”
Outlining situations at five units, Donnelly said issues at St Luke’s Kilkenny and Wexford General will be reviewed next week.
He said issues at Tipperary University Hospital will be reviewed “further”, while issues at Wexford University Hospital will be reviewed today. The situation with Letterkenny University Hospital will be reviewed on 17 May.
A number of TDs and senators, such as Social Democrats TD Holly Cairns and Fianna Fáil Senator Lisa Chambers, have been highlighting the issue in recent weeks, calling for change so that women and their partners can be together during the birth of their child, and for important scans.
Last week, The Journal reported multiple experiences of women impacted by partner restrictions during pregnancy and birth.
At the beginning of the year, this publication also highlighted the hundreds of emails sent to the health minister and other government members detailing their stories of being left alone when being told tragic news at maternity hospitals.
The Journal contacted some hospital groups on Tuesday for clarification of their individual maternity visitation policies in place.
The National Maternity Hospital allows partners to attend the 20-week scan, the labour ward or C-section theatre, and inpatient visits for a limited time to postnatal, antenatal or gynaecology wards.
A statement from the Ireland East Hospital Group said some of its maternity units “cannot further ease partner restrictions” at the moment due to the “high amount” of Covid-19 in the community and infrastructure issues at hospitals.
The Regional Hospital in Mullingar and Wexford General Hospital allow partners to attend the 20-week scan and active labour and scheduled caesarean sections.
In St Luke’s General Hospital Carlow/Kilkenny, the group statement said it hopes to facilitate partners at the 20-week scan “as soon as possible”. Partners can currently attend active labour and scheduled C-sections.
Midland Regional Hospital Portlaoise said partners can attend the anatomy scan, birth once a woman is admitted to the delivery suite, C-sections and the postnatal ward for an hour.
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Sadly I think the low turnout is nothing to do wit the rain or voter apathy, I think people saw this for wot it is, we are damned if we say yes and we are damned if we say no. there was so much scaremongering done on both sides that people were afraid to.make a decision.
people should still cash their vote, even if they’re spoilt. there is no excuses for not using a vote unless physically able to do so. its not just our privilege, its our duty.
Well now Niamh I’m going to agree with you for a change. Wonders will never cease.
I didn’t vote because I couldn’t decide either way, I thought long & hard about both sides and in the end I could see positive and negative on both – so I exercised my democratic right to NOT vote. Maybe I should have turned up and spoiled my vote, but to be honest I never even thought of it.
Spoiling a vote is pointless in a simple majority, yes/no vote.
Jesus Gary don’t make it worse by agreeing wit me. ;)
@Conor I remember as a kid going to vote wit my dad, we had successive Ff eejits elected, my dad had had enough so he spoiled his vote by writing the letters w a n k e r s in the boxes provided, it was the only time I thought spoiling a vote as protest gave some satisfaction. Otherwise I agree, spoiling a vote is pointless.
Haha, nice one, Niamh! I can see the merits of spoiling an election vote (although many can’t), as it’s a proportional representation system, and such an act can potentially deny candidates their quota. But in a referendum vote the result is determined by simple majority. So even if only 3 people out of the entire country voted, and the other millions didn’t, the result would still count.
main point of that article was nice 1 & nice 2 and Lisbon 1 & Lisbon 2.
The low turnout was expected to hurt the YES side but you need to look closely at where there was low turnout.
It seems turnout was lowest in NO areas and highest in YES areas. While not true everywhere it appears that the NO side may have stayed home yesterday.
What are you talking about? No voters are more likely to vote actually..! The main thing is we got our say because the government never wanted us to have it in the first place….! What will be now will be mister know-it-all.
Are you really that deluded I heard radio polls all day yesterday saying no had it!! But just shows how blindness and that’s how people allowed so many bad things to happen aside from this omg open your mind
Mark, we shall see very shortly who won and who lost. My money is on the referendum passing.
There we go – yes voter provides analysis, no voter- hissy fit.
Anel, I hope to quote you sarcastically around noon today.
Paddy power has reopened the book. No is 12/1. Yes is 1/66. Looks like the sheeple have spoken
Sorry about that i just got sick
@daniel! Good luck quoting Anel because I don’t even understand what he’s saying in the sentence above. It could be due to the lack of punctuation!
I’m not deluded, are we following the tallies? Even with a Low turnout the YES side has it!
David I sincerely hope you are still posting here when the ramifications of this treaty kick in. You will have a lot to defend! Also the treaty is out of date already as we will be having a referendum on full fiscal union within the year to allow Eurobonds which 100% guaranteed will mean conceding corporation tax (base) so 12.5% of what’s sold in Ireland will have devastating consequences.. Hopefully by then people will not be suffering from Stockholm syndrome.
Its still early but congratulations on driving the final nail into Ireland’s coffin, I look forward to you explaining your reasons when all materializes.
Even if it is passes the government has lost , a big percent voted no even tho the no campaign was run be ex-terrorists, far left nuts and far right nuts all of whom in my opinion lost votes for the no side, yet despite this there was a big no vote which is a very damming reflection on FG LB
Low turnout doesn’t affect the result. If over 50% don’t vote that’s there problem, the result is decided by the people that voted. If the yes or no sides didn’t mobilise the voters then don’t blame the weather
Low turnout only affects the result when you consider motivations. If Yes voters see the polls and think “Oh, it’s going through anyway, I’ll not bother” while No voters think “I will ‘ave my say regardless of the polls” then a low turn out would lead to a No result. Wouldn’t it?
@damocles- that’s reasonable but the opposite may also apply. I think early analysis is interesting as it is showing a class divide. Whatever happens, anyone thinking a low turnout is to their advantage is a sad reflection on a democracy
Donncha, quite, it depends on the psychomological motivations of Irish people.
My point was that the result is decided by the people who voted not by what what the non voters may have done
@ damocles, can’t really top that last reply…psychomological… has anyone done research on how the weather has affected human history, how many revolutions failed due to a soggy day?
Donncha, there’s always Operation Sea Lion and the Battle of Britain, if the weather window hadn’t have closed the Luftwaffe might have gained air superiority, Operation Sea Lion might have gone ahead and things would be very different now.
We’d all be ruled by the Germans.
We are presently ruled by Germans
Yes, Limofax, I was being ironic.
Maybe people are more educated and have figured out that Ireland has always been corrupt, especially to use opinions in law and falsify voting systems.
Or falsify everything with opinions that do not exist and a judicial system that does not know what to look for.
What???
Whine whine whine.
i hate legal types like you, speak english please
You three above and the 70 thumbs down should not be allowed to vote if you cannot figure the meaning of opinions in law on comparison to evidence used by the rest of the world.
To anyone who didn’t bother to exercise their democratic right to vote, I suggest that they take a running jump at the first temptation to complain about ongoing and increasingly harsh austerity measures should the Yes vote win out.
Come to think of it, Yes voters can do the same, even If I do applaud that they actually used their votes…
My sentiments exactly!!!
There’s been a lot of personal abuse from No supporters against anyone voting Yes on this forum over the last weeks. “Sheeple” etc. and crude references to fascism, treason etc. It would be refreshing if people could disagree civilly in a democratic republic. I’m not saying there weren’t valid arguments for voting No.
1.6 million not voting is totally unacceptable.. I met about a hundred No voters… 10+ yes and 1 of them changed to No, quite a few not sures who turned to No. Fingers crossed for a common sense rejection.
I don’t know anyone that was voting YES.
Spoke to lots of my colleagues yesterday – all of whom were voting yes (myself included). It could be that like minded people “hang out” together as all those on journal.ie advocating for a no vote only seem to know of other No voters! And yet I’ve only encountered yes voters
You’ll find very few No’s in the public service Mary. Turkeys don’t vote for Xmas
That’s very likely Mary.
I think many yes voters just kept quiet after seeing the type of responses from no voters on forums like this. Always difficult to persuade others to your side when you abuse them for their opinions. Is there a lesson here for the angry brigade?
I don’t work in the public service and nearly everyone I spoke to voted “yes” (There was one undecided).
All this shows is that one person’s social circle is not statistically significant in these matters.
I don’t know anyone who was voting NO
a lot of the yes vote would never be on websites, my dad for instance voted yes, even though he couldn’t come up with one good reason except, europe has been good for us, and SF are terrorists. no matter how much i tried to get him to think about what the ref was about, he still wouldnt vote no
I would imagine many people my dad’s age would be the same, so i think it will easily pass by about 62% to 66%
unfornunatly in ireland we rarley think about the what we are being asked to vote on
Even if it is a NO vote, we’ll just be asked to vote again, it’s a farce! All we have is a veil of democracy!
Well then they should vote to demonstrate that! it tales 5 minutes.. 3 referendums would prove it!
I feel that this government doesn’t represent me… And if this treaty gets through today… It’s time to give up on Ireland, absolutely no back bone. To me it feels like we’re being pushed around by the schoolyard bully, and we’re too eager to hand over our lunch money!
Nothing to do with weather but this government has had its day.
It makes me sick to think of the salaries they earn and the perks while others are expected to live on so little.
Nothing to do with the weather, or the Fiscal Compact referendum. :-/
Nothing to do with the referendum either.
For paddy power to change odds so dramatically in favour of a yes vote they would have to be very confident, that said they would have turn out results for each constituency suggesting poor areas didn’t turn out. Ironically the people who will suffer the most. Looks like Joan Burton’s shameless threat to not have any funding for social welfare payments paid off! she might say its a fact but should she not have said we will obviously pear down all high earning Civil servants wages perks, Ministers etc. No just go straight for the poor when your stuck sure they don’t vote as we have them beaten into submission. Job Done. Bleeding heart in opposition/ Bleeding heartless in power!!!!
You can’t have your cake and eat it
All the yes voters are in Spain and others places in there holiday homes god I hope it’s a no vote to shut up FF FG and them back stabbing labour party
Looks like an easy win for YES side. Too many were in fear.
Sinn Féin are still winners though. Labour will be wiped out at next election.
superb.. a future governent run by Sinn Fein and Fine Fail.. absolutely fantastic. Time to jump off the sinking ship for sure now.
The low turnout will suit the Yes side. It gives them an easy excuse to break their promise that there wouldn’t be a rerun if they lost.
I’d like just once to come in here and not see a load of whining and name calling. Some of you no guys are the worst.
Congrats Garry. Yes side have clearly won. I fear for the future but today is the Yes sides day. Hope ye use ur victory wisely. Congrats again
Ditto from me. We will now see what the future holds for us.
i agree that yes has won, but its not a day for YES to celebrate as the government has still lost , a big percent voted no even tho the no campaign was run be ex-terrorists, far left nuts and far right nuts all of whom in my opinion lost votes for the no side, yet despite this there was a big no vote which is a very damming reflection on FG LB
Well we’ll just all have to hope for the best. I’d like to think the treay will help stop Irish governments being so foolish in the future.
There seems to be a real class divide emerging in the votes counted so far. The country is really divided. Seems most of the Middle class have voted Yes, despite taking the majority of increases in taxes/charges.
It’s now 9:45 where are the tallys it should all be done and dusted by now with such a low turn out
Lots of tallys on twitter and politics.ie.
Looking like a definite yes.
Also the lefties on politics.ie are beginning to insult everybody and call the electorate idiots so that’s a good sign for a yes.
bit by bit it’s here:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0601/fiscal-treaty-referendum-count-to-begin.html
Early tallies are looking like an easy YES
Dublin north:yes 40% no 60% ; dub north west yes 47% no 52%.,from rte live blog
So when does this much vaunted stability and increase in jobs kick in?
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=78909677&postcount=1
Yeah the damn government and all it’s exaggeration and misdirection.
To answer your question, stability is likely to take years and no one is saying otherwise. Other than one battered ‘Yes for Jobs’ poster from Lisbon that someone stuck up there has anyone been claiming yes for jobs?
Kenny, Gilmore and the rest of them were you not listening to them during the referendum campaign?
Honestly no I wasn’t.
People only vote yes so they can blame the government if it goes horribly wrong for telling us to vote yes. If we vote no then if it goes wrong we will be to blame, and we all know the irish dont want to blame themselves.
N Dublin West 52/47 NO @10% vote counted
i dont get it where are all the people that are on here and every other site saying they will vote no? obviously didn’t bother getting out to vote just like the household charge talking the talk but not walking the walk.
oooh the household charge… I knew there was something I meant to do!! :P
0953 With 60% of boxes open in Limerick City the Yes is at 60% while No is at 40%. In Limerick, the Yes are are on 57% and No on 43% with 70% of boxes open.
0950 A tally from Dublin South, with 7.7% of boxes open, has Yes at 69% and No at 31%.
0948 With 20 of the 191 boxes tallied in Louth, the Yes is on 52% and the No on 48%.
I’m wondering if those commenting here with political party avatars have given a bit of critical thought to the implications and impact of the referendum on the country or merely go along with what their boys tell them to? The same of course to the nay-sayers. I’ve seen a lot of fanboy comments and rates from the bookies but not much actual, useful discussion on the pros and cons of this deal..?
have your say