The Northern Trust will cease the deliveries of babies at Causeway Hospital during the surge period of COVIS-19.
Instead expectant mothers will be transferred to Antrim to give birth, while antenatal services will continue at Causeway hospital.
The Health and Social Care (HSC) system has published a further element of its planning for the expected surge in increasing numbers of Covid-19 patients.
This part of the plan involves protecting children’s and maternity services while releasing bed space to contribute to the overall surge response. It complements the critical care surge plan to establish the Belfast City Hospital Tower Block as Northern Ireland’s first Nightingale Hospital.
Children’s and maternity services will be temporarily reconfigured to free up to 130 beds during extreme surge in acute hospitals, which will be vital in treating the sickest patients and makes best use of our hospitals. A regional plan has been agreed with all Trusts and paediatric units which contains a number of steps that can be triggered depending on the pressures on services. Around 50 beds for adults could be made available when Step One is implemented in the days ahead.
The plan has been developed with paediatricians and children’s nurses from across Northern Ireland. It is designed to protect children’s services and make sure babies and children who need urgent or emergency care are able to get that care from suitably qualified and experienced paediatric staff in a timely way. While the plan includes a temporary reduction in inpatient paediatric services, every acute hospital will continue to have senior consultant paediatricians located in these facilities to assess and treat acutely unwell children.
The temporary measures are also designed to protect highly specialised paediatric services which are only available in the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children, and make sure they can continue even if many staff are absent because of illness. This is to make sure children in Northern Ireland can continue to access highly specialised and life-saving services such as Paediatric Intensive Care throughout the surge.
After careful consideration, it has also been agreed that while antenatal services will continue at Causeway Hospital, it is not possible to deliver babies in the Causeway Hospital during this surge period. This is because we will not have enough skilled paediatricians available to provide emergency care to a baby born in distress throughout the 24 hour period. To protect the wellbeing of mothers and babies, women booked to deliver in Causeway will be contacted and have their delivery transferred to Antrim or Altnagelvin Hospital.
Maternity services in Daisy Hill, South West Acute, Craigavon, Altnagelvin, Antrim, the Ulster and the Royal Jubilee Maternity Hospital (RJMH) will continue.
There will be daily monitoring and communication across the paediatric network during the surge to ensure there is enough paediatric capacity to deliver safe urgent and emergency care for children right across Northern Ireland.
We would urge parents and carers if your child is unwell is to seek medical advice. You should contact your GP in the first instance. If your child is very unwell you should bring them to your nearest Emergency Department, contacting the hospital ahead of arrival if they have respiratory symptoms.
