Belfast maternity hospital won't open until water system 'poses no risk to babies'
Belfast’s new maternity hospital will not open until health chiefs are assured that the domestic water systems do not pose a risk to babies, MLAs have been told.
The opening of the hospital is facing a significant delay after high levels of the bacteria pseudomonas were discovered in its water system earlier this year.
Senior officials from the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust appeared before Stormont’s Health Committee to give an update on the project.
READ MORE: Belfast maternity hospital opening facing 2 year delay due to water infection
Interim chief executive Maureen Edwards told the committee that the new building on the Royal Hospital site is “state of the art”.
She said: “We really need a 21st century service. Our mothers and babies deserve it.”
She added: “Pseudomonas aeruginosa has been detected within the domestic water systems, the systems that supply waters to our taps, our showers and our baths in the maternity hospital.
“We recognise this has been a long-awaited project, this is the latest in a number of delays from the inception.”
Pseudomonas aeruginosa is found widely in soil and stagnant water. It does not usually cause illness in healthy people but can pose a serious threat to people with weak immune systems.
The project to open a new maternity hospital at the Royal Victoria has been plagued by delays for several years.
The hospital had been expected to open next year and the Belfast Trust took possession of the building in March.
Ms Edwards told MLAs that pseudomonas was first detected while the building was being constructed.
The contractor carried out chemical treatment and pipe recovery work and after samples were taken the building was handed over to the trust.
However, Ms Edwards said a subsequent commissioning process was carried out and further tests detected “incidents of contamination in a significant number of outlets”.
She added: “We cannot and we will not open a building until we are assured that the domestic water systems do not pose a risk to the safety of our babies.
“We took the decision we would pause, we would get an independent review of the situation.”
She said the review would be carried out by two industry experts including the UK Health and Security Agency at Porton Down.
She said their analysis would inform the trust’s next steps.
Consultant neonatologist Alison Walker told MLAs that pseudomonas was an “opportunistic bacteria”.
She said: “Whenever it infects a patient or a neonate with an underdeveloped or compromised immune system, then the effects can be really quite devastating. Infections can be very serious and cause death in extreme circumstances.
"There has been past experience in Belfast and Northern Ireland as a whole with pseudomonas. There was an outbreak at the end of 2011, early 2012. At that point across five trusts 25 infants and families were affected and unfortunately there were five deaths from pseudomonas at that time.”
The new maternity hospital in Belfast is already several years overdue and is well over budget.
A Northern Ireland Audit Office report earlier this year said the hospital was originally expected to be completed by the end of 2015.
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