ALL THREE maternity hospitals in Dublin should move from their current sites and be located on the same campuses as acute hospitals, an independent report has recommended.
The report, compiled by KPMG which was commissioned by the Health Service Executive to review maternity services in the capital, states that the National Maternity Hospital at Holles Street should move to the site of Dublin's St Vincent's Hospital, that the Coombe Women's Hospital should move onto the site of Tallaght Hospital and that the Rotunda should move in due course to the Mater Hospital campus.
The report, details of which have been obtained by The Irish Times, concludes that the three maternity hospitals are all very confined on their present sites and do not have room to expand to deal with the huge increase in births they have had to contend with in recent years. Last year each of them dealt with more than 8,000 births and this year the Rotunda and Holles Street are expected to deal with more than 9,000 deliveries.
The report says it is international best practice to have maternity hospitals co-located with large acute hospitals so they can share expertise.
Senior staff at the three maternity hospitals have been briefed by the HSE on the report's contents and the HSE board is due to consider the report at its meeting next month. It will then be published.
Its findings are expected to be welcomed by the maternity hospitals which have been anxious to move for some time. Last month the master of the Coombe Hospital, Dr Chris Fitzpatrick, confirmed the board of his hospital had told the HSE it would be prepared to sell its current site to finance a move which would see it co-locating with Tallaght hospital. He said the plan was supported by Tallaght and St James's Hospitals with which the Coombe shares staff and patients.
Holles Street has also had a long-held view that it needed to relocate to the site of an acute hospital and St Vincent's Hospital had agreed in principle as far back as 2006 to its relocation there.
There had also been an expectation that the Rotunda would move to the single site national children's hospital at the Mater, when it is was built.
It is not clear if there is any definite timescale for the hospitals to move, though in each case the moves could be expected to take a number of years. Dr Fitzpatrick said last month he anticipated the Coombe's move to Tallaght could be completed, if approved, within five years.
Neither is it clear whether there will be funding to implement the report's proposals in the current economic climate. However, both the Coombe and Holles Street have looked at selling their sites to raise money to partially fund their relocation.
There is also some discussion in the KPMG report on sub-specialisation and on which of the maternity hospitals should deal with reproductive medicine, gynaecological cancers and high- risk foetal medicine.
The KPMG review of maternity and gynaecology services in the greater Dublin region began in June 2007 and while it was expected to be completed earlier this year it's understood it was delayed as a result of a decision to commission at a late stage a study of population trends in each area.
The HSE has confirmed the KPMG report has been completed and said it was "communicating with key stakeholders seeking feedback on the review" before it is published in coming weeks.