Cork's new €75m University Maternity Hospital is open for admissions after 62 per cent of nurses and midwives voted in a ballot last night to work at the state-of-the-art facility.
Three hundred staff assisted in the transfer of patients from three other hospitals in the Cork area in an operation titled 'Operation Bambino' from 11 o'clock this morning.
The new facility, which is an amalgamation of maternity services from Erinville, St Finbarr's and Bons Secours hospitals, had received forty-six mothers and forty-six babies as well as twenty babies from the county's neo-natal units.
The hospital opened its doors for admissions from 3pm to cater for maternity, women's health and newborn special care requirements of patients from Cork and the surrounding region
Patients who are in the advanced stages of labour are being kept at their original hospitals until it is deemed safe to move them.
St Finbarr's was the first hospital to participate in the transfer to the new hospital. Each of the three hospitals held a candle lighting ceremony this morning to mark the occasion.
The new hospital was originally due to open last Saturday but was put off at the last minute when nurses and midwives voted against the move over concerns regarding staffing levels.
Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) general secretary Liam Doran presented revised proposals agreed during talks with the HSE, to midwives from the three hospitals last night.
Under the agreement, an additional 20 midwifery and nursing staff will immediately commence work in the hospital.
Eighty two additional midwives will be recruited over the next six months, with twenty-seven of those posts coming on stream in April.
Speaking this morning Mr Doran said: "The INO is pleased that the new facility will now open with the required level of staff that satisfies our members legitimate professional concerns."
"We look forward to working with the HSE, over the next 6 months, in the monitoring process, which will be independently chaired, to ensure that all of the commitments about staffing and the development of all required services will now be realised."
"The recent difficulties were always about staffing and the immediate injection of 20 additional posts, which sees the opening of 128 beds today with 335 staff instead of the 315 available last Saturday, is proof that the previous concerns of our members were valid," he said.
Barry O' Brien, Asst National Director of Human Resources, HSE South who has led the HR talks on behalf of HSE South said, "I want to place on record the HSE's appreciation of all the unions' engagement and commitment to reach agreement to facilitate the opening of this state of the art maternity hospital".
"All issues concerning safe staffing levels have been addressed and we will now open 128 beds as planned at the new facility tomorrow. The facility, which is the best funded, best equipped and best staffed maternity hospital in the country, will provide a world class service in a world class environment for maternity patients."