Reorganisation of Obstetric services during the COVID pandemic – Experience from National Maternity Hospital Dublin Ireland

Sheil, Orla; McAuliffe, Fionnuala M.

The 2020 SARS-CoV-2 pandemic posed significant challenges to the health service. Many services cancelled all routine appointments and surgery, which allowed them to re direct care towards large numbers of infected patients requiring respiratory and other support. Maternity services are relatively unique in that most of the care is time sensitive and cannot be rescheduled. Assessment such as routine bloods need to be taken in early pregnancy, anatomic surveys are best done at 20-22 weeks’ gestation, and births continue regardless of a pandemic. In this paper we describe how National Maternity Hospital Dublin, with an annual delivery rate of 8000 births, reorganised services to continue to care for our mothers and babies. This included the development of a ‘hospital within a hospital’ approach, and separate physical and care pathways for positive cases. The delivery of virtual outpatient appointments and a comprehensive online patient education portal have proved successful.