This year promises to be a very exciting time for the Rotunda Hospital as it develops its campus within the Northside of Dublin City. While the Earl Building will provide state of the art facilities for our paediatric and hospital based pregnancy care, the purchase of Dominick Street Lower by the H.S.E. will enable us to transform our gynaecology services.
Key to this service provision is our colleagues in primary healthcare and in this edition of the E-zine we outline the basis for this new service. Essentially this service is predicated upon primary healthcare doctors, who know their patients better than anyone, to indicate to us the sub-specialty area within gynaecology which would best serve the individual women who they are caring for. To that end we would ask that you would identify the specific problem that your patient is presenting to you with and we will then ensure that an appropriate care pathway is generated for that woman.
The aim of this service is to ensure that the right woman sees the right doctor the first time they are seen within secondary care. Your co-operation and help with this is absolutely essential to providing this service. Professor Dorothy Ryan and Dr. Brian Harnedy have written a very informative article on evaluating dyspnoea in pregnancy. This is a common presentation among pregnant women and their insights are extremely important in terms of identifying those women who need extra care.
Our Physiotherapy department have written a very helpful article on pregnancy related pelvic girdle pain. This pain, which can affect up to two thirds of pregnant women, can cause significant disability. Interestingly exercise may actually prevent or reduce the incidents of pelvic girdle pain.
Over many years now, and in particular since 2019, the Perinatal Mental Health service has developed within the Rotunda. Ursula Nagle, who is an Advanced Midwife Practitioner, has helped to establish the Perinatal Trauma Clinic. Unfortunately, some women do experience a traumatic birth and require additional care following this. Ursula and her team have written a very informative article about birth trauma and the service.
With every good wish for 2024.
Professor Sean Daly,
Master/CEO, Rotunda Hospital.
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