Rotunda says it will not ease restrictions for loved ones SETBACK ON MATERNITY

IRELAND’S largest maternity hospital has said it won’t ease restrictions for loved ones – despite promises from the HSE that strict rules would soon be lifted.

The Rotunda Hospital said that it is overcrowded and that lifting restrictions could lead to a Covid outbreak.

It comes amid a growing chorus for maternity hospitals to loosen strictures placed on partners of pregnant women accompanying them.

Today, a husband shares his heartbreaking story with the Irish Daily Mail of being stuck in the pouring

rain after his wife suffered a miscarriage at the Rotunda.

Yesterday, the Rotunda defended its decision, saying its building is 275 years old, and it is not possible to ensure the minimum one-metre physical distancing in many of its inpatient and outpatient areas.

‘Providing safe physical distancing in areas like the outpatients department, emergency department and our multi-bed rooms is impossible,’ it said, adding that Covid numbers are rising.

‘Currently, the rates of Covid-19 infection in the community are high, and rising, specifically in the under-30 age group. This age group comprises a large part of the Rotunda’s patient population.’

At the weekend, the HSE said some additional lifting of restrictions will take place at maternity hospitals in the coming weeks.

New guidance from the HSE will allow for partners to attend 12-week scans and to be present during some caesarean sections and early scans if miscarriages are suspected.

However, the grief-stricken husband who spoke to the Mail has described how he had to stand outside in the pouring rain on July 30 as his wife was told their unborn baby had died. The man, who is from Dublin and wishes to remain anonymous, said he was ushered out of the hospital’s early pregnancy assessment unit (EPAU) the moment he escorted his distressed partner inside.

This is despite Taoiseach Micheál Martin saying it was ‘unacceptable’ that some maternity hospitals were still restricting the entry of partners of women experiencing high-risk pregnancies.

The heartbroken father told the Mail the experience of being told to leave his wife’s side has left him traumatised and angered.

‘It was my partner’s 12-week scan

on Friday and I dropped her off at the hospital thinking that everything was perfectly fine. I knew I wasn’t allowed in so I went home... A short time later, she sent me a text saying she had been told something wasn’t right in her initial scan so I drove back to the hospital right away.

‘I met my wife in the courtyard area of the hospital while she was waiting for her second scan, fearing that it wasn’t going to be good news. I walked into the EPAU with her, fully expecting I could sit there and hear what the doctors had to say. ‘She was in tears.’ Moments later, a staff member approached him to say that he would have to leave the area immediately.

‘He just ushered me out the door as if I was causing a big disruption,’ the distraught husband said. ‘I had to wait outside in the unit in the pouring rain and was just trying to get a look in to see what was happening.

‘My wife then came out in tears and delivered the news that I was dreading. It was one of the worst experiences of my life.’

‘My wife came out in tears’