Maternity

From Monday May 31 birthing partners will be allowed a daily 30 minute visit to the Maternity Department at Letterkenny University Hospital after the birth of the baby. In addition birthing partners may accompany women to the dating scan as well as the anomaly scan.

A number of changes in how patients access Sligo University Hospital were put in place this week. This is to ensure that patients who need to attend the hospital can do so safely during the current COVID-19 public health emergency.

Since Monday (06 April), the main entrance of the hospital has moved from the current location at the front of the hospital, to the Outpatient Department Entrance on the Mall Road. This entrance will be open from 8am to 9pm every day.

A team from the Maternity Department at University Hospital Galway won the Midwifery Led Project at the recent Irish Healthcare Centre Awards for their quality improvement project on preventing hypothermia in newborn babies admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. This quality improvement project has resulted in a reduction in the number of babies who have to be admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and an increase in breastfeeding rates by 9%.

From Wednesday 24 April, Sligo University Hospital will be providing a weekly outreach antenatal and gynaecology service from the Ballymote Primary and Mental Health Care Centre.

Over 50 people recently attended the Whose Shoes event which was hosted by the Maternity Unit, UHG and facilitated by Croi. This was the first Whose Shoes event to be held in Ireland. The idea behind Whose Shoes is to facilitate discussion on topics related to personalisation in health and social services.

The event included members of the public, volunteer groups, obstetric and neonatal consultants, midwives both local and National and allied health care professionals.