Pregnant women's vaccinated partners not allowed to stay with them in hospitals.

A desire not to have to console other people whose pregnant partners got Covid (or the flu, or novovirus or MRSA or whatever) because of an unnecessary person being in the hospital.

This was put to Donnelly a while back and his answer was it's up to the management at each individual hospital to make their own rules regarding restrictions suggesting it's out of his control. Whether that's him passing the buck or not nobody knows I suppose.

Bloody stupid carry on, so hospitals can make their own rules and their boss,the HSE can’t do anything about it

It makes sense to restrict as much as possible the number of people in a hospital, the one place where there are concentrated numbers of ill patients.

We already know that covid is more dangerous to people with underlying conditions so restrictive measures are simply necessary.

Being vaccinated also doesn't change that. It's obvious that once you are going l fully vaccinated, you are going to be less cautious sir to your own lower self risk and possibly more likely to spread it while being asymptomatic.

This is real crAp.

My wife gave birth last year and had serious complications (ok now thankfully, baby also grand). She was completely out of it and they wouldn’t tell her what was wrong with her. She was giving me the odd WhatsApp pic of the baby and I thought all was ok. It was only on the 4th day in hospital when she said she was being given a 3rd blood transfusion that I started to worry.

It was only when her sister who’s a nurse in a different hospital said “hey that’s not normal” that she rang the ward (I didn’t know ringing a specific ward in a hospital was a possible thing), that she found out what was wrong (big hemmorage), and then suddenly my wife didn’t think she was dying anymore with weird symptoms.

Had I been there to see her I would have copped all this and be able to take care of her and baby as needed. She got no help in hospital, trying to change nappies while trying not to faint from anemia and breastfeed one-handed while hooked up to blood.

It was definitely a traumatic experience that will stay with her forever really.

Why could I not just take a damn test and come in, sure I’d be happy going in in a hazmat suit if needed.

I just saw on Twitter a woman on a labour ward said a teenager in the bed opposite is roaring because her mother had to leave. This is such a traumatic, desperate situation.

Donnelly needs to put more pressure on hospitals to lift restrictions. It’s pure cruelty to leave the woman in need of support that a loved one or partner can give, and to leave the partner stuck outside feeling useless. And it must be miserable for the partners to know they’re missing bonding in the first few days of their child’s life.

If the government can arrange PCR tests for gigs, they can figure this out.

Many, many women have birthed and raised children without a father in sight.

What this is really exposing is the abysmal midwifery staffing levels in our hospitals.

Women should not be having the horrific experiences described here, because their should be adequate numbers of vetted, trained, qualified and registered health care professionals to care for them. Because there aren't, many women have come to depend on their unvetted, untrained, unqualified sex and/or life partners instead. Having these people in labour and post-birth Wards raises all sorts of risks.

And many of those women who didn't have the father with them had the support from someone else, their own mother or their sister etc. And just because it was done before doesn't mean that we should put up and shut up now.

Having a partner with them who can advocate for them is important and on a practical level who can help care for the baby, if the mother has difficulties after the birth due to blood loss, c-section etc. That's not even considering the women who have miscarriages or get bad news at a scan.

Most women want "these people" with them while they are going through labour and birth. No amount of staff can make up for having to do it alone if that isn't what they want.

Being an advocate for patients is part of the job of being a nurse / midwife.

If you think that the midwives who cared for you did not adequately advocate for you, then you need to start making official complaints about that.

Having your sex or life partner there might make you feel better, but unless they are medically trained they don't know what issues are important and what aren't.

Omg this is an absolute disgrace. I knew this was the case a few months ago before we had this many people vaccinated but I thought that it has ended ages ago. Absolutely bizarre taking into account that my husband regularly drives our elderly neighbor to his hospital appointments and often goes into the room with him as the man has no family and my husband likes to comfort him. He never really had any issue to accompany this men to his appointments and to think that a father is not allowed to be there at his partner side during one of the most important events of human life is simply sicking.

It is funny how the Minister for Health and the Department of Health can impose the restrictions on the hospitals as they did at the start of the pandemic but removing the restrictions is left up the management at the hospitals. It is ridiculous that minister cannot order the hospitals to lift the restrictions in line with government guidance.

It's quite clear that some maternity hospitals are quite happy to have partners there as little as possible as they, quite frankly, get in the way.

I wonder many of the people looking for special treatment would be fine with the situation where they had their baby and were on a ward where all the other new mothers had their family members popping in and out all the time

And it's not only just the "direct" contact. Loads more people around the hospital mean the staff are coming into contact with many more people during the day before attending to the new mother and her baby

If it was me, I'd want to be in a facility that had as few non-essential, non-staff, people traipsing around as possible.

Yeah, its easier to pressurise women in labour into various treatments or procedures they don't want or need when there is no one there to advocate for them. Easier to ignore their requests for help too and get on with other work to make their jobs easier.

Currently pregnant myself. Have gone private (just lucky enough to afford same) so that my partner can attend all scans. It’s money we will find because he will never have another chance to experience this for this pregnancy again.

What really baffles me is that I am a frontline worker in another health sector and I regularly see both parents for appointments in a far less controlled environment than a hospital. My partner works from home and therefore has very little opportunity to get Covid, but I have a risk of doing so daily!

I am not surprised though. I have a research background in maternity care and it’s striking how reluctant hospitals can be to allow you ask maternity patients about their thoughts and experiences, as it’s too “intrusive”. But, it’s not intrusive to have intimate procedures done while on your own at one of the most vulnerable periods in terms of the lifetime experience of mental health difficulties, without social support. I’ve seen dozens of pregnant people left waiting in busy antenatal clinics for hours, trying to cope with heat, uncomfortable seats, limited bathrooms, not able to go get food because you have to stay where you are.

Its a worldwide problem. Why would ireland be any different?

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.16.20212480v2.full

Forcing women to give birth alone will lead to poorer outcomes

If HCW's were so lazy as to force the easy option on women you'd expect the mortality rate for mother's to be above zero (as it was in 2019)?

One would think that if it's that **** that it would be reflected in elevated mortality rates relative to other western countries.

The hospitals are quite independent and would likely require a change in the law to give him the power to amend internal operational policy. The best he can do is ask nicely.