Pregnant women's vaccinated partners not allowed to stay with them in hospitals.

A desire not to have to console other people whose pregnant partners got Covid (or the flu, or novovirus or MRSA or whatever) because of an unnecessary person being in the hospital.

This was put to Donnelly a while back and his answer was it's up to the management at each individual hospital to make their own rules regarding restrictions suggesting it's out of his control. Whether that's him passing the buck or not nobody knows I suppose.

Bloody stupid carry on, so hospitals can make their own rules and their boss,the HSE can’t do anything about it

It makes sense to restrict as much as possible the number of people in a hospital, the one place where there are concentrated numbers of ill patients.

We already know that covid is more dangerous to people with underlying conditions so restrictive measures are simply necessary.

Being vaccinated also doesn't change that. It's obvious that once you are going l fully vaccinated, you are going to be less cautious sir to your own lower self risk and possibly more likely to spread it while being asymptomatic.

This is real crAp.

My wife gave birth last year and had serious complications (ok now thankfully, baby also grand). She was completely out of it and they wouldn’t tell her what was wrong with her. She was giving me the odd WhatsApp pic of the baby and I thought all was ok. It was only on the 4th day in hospital when she said she was being given a 3rd blood transfusion that I started to worry.

It was only when her sister who’s a nurse in a different hospital said “hey that’s not normal” that she rang the ward (I didn’t know ringing a specific ward in a hospital was a possible thing), that she found out what was wrong (big hemmorage), and then suddenly my wife didn’t think she was dying anymore with weird symptoms.

Had I been there to see her I would have copped all this and be able to take care of her and baby as needed. She got no help in hospital, trying to change nappies while trying not to faint from anemia and breastfeed one-handed while hooked up to blood.

It was definitely a traumatic experience that will stay with her forever really.

Why could I not just take a damn test and come in, sure I’d be happy going in in a hazmat suit if needed.

I just saw on Twitter a woman on a labour ward said a teenager in the bed opposite is roaring because her mother had to leave. This is such a traumatic, desperate situation.

Donnelly needs to put more pressure on hospitals to lift restrictions. It’s pure cruelty to leave the woman in need of support that a loved one or partner can give, and to leave the partner stuck outside feeling useless. And it must be miserable for the partners to know they’re missing bonding in the first few days of their child’s life.

If the government can arrange PCR tests for gigs, they can figure this out.

Many, many women have birthed and raised children without a father in sight.

What this is really exposing is the abysmal midwifery staffing levels in our hospitals.

Women should not be having the horrific experiences described here, because their should be adequate numbers of vetted, trained, qualified and registered health care professionals to care for them. Because there aren't, many women have come to depend on their unvetted, untrained, unqualified sex and/or life partners instead. Having these people in labour and post-birth Wards raises all sorts of risks.

And many of those women who didn't have the father with them had the support from someone else, their own mother or their sister etc. And just because it was done before doesn't mean that we should put up and shut up now.

Having a partner with them who can advocate for them is important and on a practical level who can help care for the baby, if the mother has difficulties after the birth due to blood loss, c-section etc. That's not even considering the women who have miscarriages or get bad news at a scan.

My buddy has been out in the car park while his wife is currently going through labour...she is into hour 11, and his not allowed in...it's a complete joke

Most women want "these people" with them while they are going through labour and birth. No amount of staff can make up for having to do it alone if that isn't what they want.

I never usually post but I can't not on this issue.

Myself and my husband had a similar awful experience to this couple in February. I woke up bleeding heavily and my husband brought me to the Coombe on a Friday afternoon and was turned away at the door. I was in such a bad way I couldn't really advocate for myself, they ignored me when I said who my consultant usually was (I was so early I hadn't seen him yet for this pregnancy). I was told the bleeding was “normal” and sent me home to come back the following Monday to confirm the loss. I was too weak and upset to argue. I bled even worse all weekend and started blacking out. We went back in and I ended up needing emergency surgery and 3 blood transfusions. My haemoglobin had dropped so low I almost died. I had to stay in for 3 days without my husband. It was horrific. The worst part of this was not having him there to, firstly, console me during a traumatic time but also to be my voice and stand up for me. I should never have been sent home but I felt unheard and unsupported and I could have died.

Unfortunately I am possibly currently experiencing another loss and I am terrified of this all happening again and my husband being sent back to his car again. How awful it must have been for me to call him in floods of tears and he had to sit there feeling so helpless instead of holding me.

As I said, I rarely post but I can't stay silent on this any more. Leaving women to labor, give birth, cope in the days after birth, traumatic and emergency deliveries etc. and also hearing bad news and miscarrying alone like I did is inhumane.

Tens of thousands are being allowed at the All-Ireland finals and other events but women can't have their birth partners by their sides?!? Indoor dining is allowed for vaccinated people for hours yet vaccinated partners can't even visit or stay for more than an hour or so after birth or traumatic losses. It's just so unfair.

Being an advocate for patients is part of the job of being a nurse / midwife.

If you think that the midwives who cared for you did not adequately advocate for you, then you need to start making official complaints about that.

Having your sex or life partner there might make you feel better, but unless they are medically trained they don't know what issues are important and what aren't.

Omg this is an absolute disgrace. I knew this was the case a few months ago before we had this many people vaccinated but I thought that it has ended ages ago. Absolutely bizarre taking into account that my husband regularly drives our elderly neighbor to his hospital appointments and often goes into the room with him as the man has no family and my husband likes to comfort him. He never really had any issue to accompany this men to his appointments and to think that a father is not allowed to be there at his partner side during one of the most important events of human life is simply sicking.