Media reports ‘scaring pregnant women’
Maternity boss criticises constant focus on stories about childbirth mishaps
EXPECTANT mothers are terrified going into maternity hospitals because of scare stories perpetuated by the media, according to a hospital chief.
Dr Sharon Sheehan, master of the Coombe Women & Infants University Hospital in Dublin, criticised the media’s constant focus on adverse outcomes, difficult births, staff shortages, lack of foetal scanning and crises in the health sector.
She warned that almost every day another negative headline dominated the front pages of our newspapers, scaring expectant mothers and their families – ‘and also the staff who work in our maternity services’.
Dr Sheehan told the conference on quality, patient safety and clinical risk, hosted by the State Claims Agency, that despite media ‘scare stories’, the outcomes for most
‘We have to eliminate the postcode lottery’
mothers was positive.
She said reports of High Court cases involving babies damaged at birth – cases that often drag on for many years before settlement – had led to a public perception that childbirth carries high risks.
Dr Sheehan also warned of the challenges of the growing incidence of obesity in pregnancy.
Irish maternity services overall had good outcomes, she said.
‘But almost every day another media headline grabs the front pages and serves to terrify the expectant mothers and their families and also to terrify the staff who work in our maternity services,’ she added.
According to the Coombe chief, Irish hospitals are not alone in attracting negative headlines, with the British health service receiving a similar media focus.
Dr Sheehan argued that much of the negative coverage Irish maternity hospitals receive is undeserved, given that our perinatal death rates are declining, while maternal death rates are ‘among the very lowest in the developed world’.
Despite these improvements, Dr Sheehan said all 19 maternity units in the State needed to offer the same standard of care.
‘We have got to eliminate this postcode lottery that exists in terms of standards, whereby at the moment, most of our 19 units in fact do not offer foetal anomaly screening, which in this day and age is completely unacceptable,’ she said.
She said that social media had not been actively used to promote the positive side of Irish maternity services.
The joint standing committee of the three Dublin maternity hospitals is examining better ways of communicating ‘to get that story out there’, she said.
The doctor said there was a lot of evidence in the public domain of good outcomes but that ‘those stories don’t seem to make it into the media’.
‘I do think the information is there and I think we could certainly engage better to make sure that the positive story is getting out. I think the hospitals and the media could work together to come up with a strategy whereby there is a balance to the reporting.’
She said there had been very good feedback from the maternity services featured on RTÉ television series Keeping Ireland Alive: The Health Service In A Day, which shows the health service in a positive light.
Dr Sheehan emphasised the importance of putting across a ‘consistent, positive message that we are hiring and we do need more midwives and obstetricians to be able to deliver women’.
She told doctors’ newspaper The Medical Independent that the message of good experiences for expectant mothers must come from hospitals, hospital groups, the HSE, the Department of Health, politicians, the media and the public.
Her comments follow news coverage of several high-profile and prolonged court cases for damages arising out of birthrelated complications or medical errors.
‘Because over the past 12 months, we have had a series of mixed messages and, certainly, that has massively impacted on our recruitment, with many potential employees from overseas contacting, certainly our hospital, and saying, “I understand you are not hiring any more.”
‘So the messaging has to be consistent – we are recruiting.’
Despite the renewed recruitment of doctors and nurses, Dr Sheehan said maternity services were still hugely understaffed.
In Ireland, a consultant obstetrician is responsible for approximately 597 births per annum, as opposed to 268 in Scotland.
She added that the three Dublin maternity hospitals – the Coombe, the Rotunda and the National Maternity Hospital at Holles Street – were operating at a 17% deficit in midwifery staff.
This is against the backdrop of increased complexity related to the health and age of mothers that continues to challenge our maternity services.
‘We have seen an enormous rise in the numbers of women who present with obesity and who go on to develop gestational diabetes; also in the number of women who avail of assisted reproductive techniques; who present with comorbidities, and also advanced maternal age,’ she added.
‘Good outcomes don’t make it into the media’