New Rose Room for bereaved parents at Limerick's Maternity

FOR all the thousands of women who give birth in the University Maternity Hospital Limerick on the Ennis Road every year, there are a small percentage who never get to carry their baby home in their arms.

To help women and couples cope with their loss, UMHL has been granted funding to refurbish its Rose Room as part of The Irish Hospice Foundation and the HSE’s Design and Dignity Grants Scheme which transforms hospital spaces for patients.

Some €7,200 has been provided for the space, with €5,003 coming from the HSE grant and the remainder coming from UMHL. On average there are 4,500 babies born at the Maternity every year.

“Although the majority of women presenting at the Antenatal Clinic have a positive outcome, sadly there are women who experience fetal loss or fetal abnormalities,” said Marie Hunt, bereavement counselling midwife at the hospital.

Ms Hunt said that the Rose Room is a quiet room for compassionate care where parents can receive difficult news in privacy.

It is situated adjoining one of the main ultrasound rooms with an interconnecting door. When a doctor or ultrasonographer identifies a fetal abnormality on the ultrasound scan, or when a woman or couple have been asked to return to the hospital for the results of diagnostic tests, there needs to be a private dignified comfortable space where they can be met and cared for.

For the remainder of their antenatal care the women need to have this space available for them if they wish.

The Design and Dignity scheme previously funded a mortuary refurbishment in University Hospital Limerick as well as family rooms in St John’s Hospital and Nenagh Hospital and a bereavement suite in Ennis Hospital.