A shortage of midwives and other resources in maternity hospitals across the State is putting women at risk, the Irish Hospital Consultants Association annual conference heard at the weekend.
Dr John Bermingham, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at Waterford Regional Hospital, said the current shortages mean a woman can sometimes find herself being left on her own during labour.
"By and large we try not to leave anyone on their own, but in this day and age it is becoming increasingly difficult to say to a woman you will have one-to-one care all of the time," he said.
"If she's unfortunate enough not to have a partner or a friend who can be with her it can happen," he said, that she could end up alone. "We have a crisis in obstetrics at the present with staffing amongst midwives. The level of stress and burnout and the level of people walking out the door is unprecedented."
He called on the Department of Health and the HSE to better resource maternity hospitals to cater for the increasing number of births they have to deal with.
"There is a drain on midwifery services that is unprecedented. People are choosing to opt for public health hours, public health flexibility in their career because they are not getting flexibility from the hospital system.
"At a time three years since the Minister introduced the family- friendly initiative, we still do not have any family-friendly policies with regard to our nursing colleagues and their career," he said.
"They are leaving behind women where their care is beginning to fail," he added.
Clinical risk forms were being filled out regularly in hospitals as a result of the low staff to patient ratio difficulties, he said.
"It is a fact that the services are being affected by the recruitment ban and by the overall numbers left in midwifery," he continued.
Dr Michael O'Dowd, a consultant obstetrician at Portiuncula Hospital in Ballinasloe said births had increased from 49,000 in 1993 to 64,000 last year. He was concerned at the apparent lack of planning for this.
There were insufficient staff in terms of consultants as well as nurses to deal with all this work, he said, posing risks to traditional standards of care. "If you have a higher number of patients coming through with only the same number of staff, then they are going to find it much more difficult to perform to the same level and it's inevitable that if you get too many people going through an area versus the staff quotient, you are going to run into problems," he said.
Meanwhile the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern was quoted in yesterday's Sunday Tribune saying he was tired listening to consultants complaining.
"I really get tired of listening to these people who can earn up to €500,000 a year, or twice as much as I get, constantly giving out about their place of work. It's a pity they don't try working [ in it]