Health policy analyst and one of the best health journalists we have, Sara Burke, on the miscarriage misdiagnoses. As she puts it “another damn mess”…
And essentially, the poor performance of our maternity services is is about under-resourcing. The physical conditions of our maternity hospitals and wards are generally appalling; they are bursting at the seams, under staffed and under resourced. We pretty much have the same facilities we had 10-15 years ago when there were just over 50,000 births – a 50% growth in births without a 50% increase in investment.
We have fewer consultants per population than any other EU country 2.2 versus 4.5 Holland, which is the second worst. Also in Holland, the vast majority of births are mid wife delivered, the opposite to Ireland. Here, there is an over reliance on junior doctors and a crisis in junior doctor provision.
I venture another objective viewpoint on the ‘miscarriage debacle’ I had a similar experience over 29 years ago.At a 7week scan I was told there was no heart beat. When I told the obstetrician that I could see something moving on the screen his words were’ A piece of driftwood will float in a pond’ I was told to go home and wait for nature to take it’s course. A repeat scan three weeks later showed a healthy hear beat. My point is that nowadays too much early intervention is being undertaken. This is much more costly and has probably cost the lives of several children whose heartbeats were not detected. The health care service and in particular the maternity service has too much intervention and too little best medical practice. Best practice does not always have to mean intervention. If I had been pregnant today and not all those years ago I would probably have lost my daughter to a mis diagnosis and an unnecessary D&C.