Further protests are planned for later this week.
Protests will be held outside a number of hospitals from this morning to highlight how the Covid-19 restrictions are affecting maternity patients and their partners.
@AIMSIreland are organising safe socially distance protests all over the country this week.
There is a protest organised at #Sligo University Hospital at 11am on Thursday 13th May. #partnersarenotvisitors
Please register at @[email protected] as this is not a mass rally! pic.twitter.com/7v0TN5HyAN
— Nessa Cosgrove (@CosgroveNessa) May 10, 2021
Source: Twitter (@CosgroveNessa)
For over a year now, hundreds of women have had to attend antenatal appointments alone and some have to go through labour without a birth partner present.
@DonnellyStephen You HAVE to stop the human rights violations that are happening to new parents in the country by the ousting of parents from their own children's birth #parentsAreNotVisitors #PartnersAreNotVisitors #WhoseNeedsAreBeingMet
— Kieran Allen (@kieruu) May 10, 2021
Source: Twitter (@kieruu)
The HSE says the "conditions are right" to ease some restrictions stopping partners from attending scans, but it's at the discretion of the hospitals to decide when to do so.
Maternity advocacy group AIMS will be at Letterkenny Hospital in Donegal, Holles Street and The Coombe in Dublin and Our Lady of Lourdes in Drogheda, Co. Louth.
They're staging the protests today to highlight how restrictions are affecting patients and their partners.
Great, I can go get my hair done but my partner will have to sit in the carpark while I labour alone until hospital decides when it's safe for him to join & kick him out after an hour & not to see each other again until home time. Ridiculous. @AIMSIreland @ReformMaternity
— Cathy (@ereedtac) May 10, 2021
Source: Twitter (@ereedtac)
Further protests are planned for later this week in Cork, Killkenny, Westmeath, Laois, Limerick, Wexford and Sligo.
