More babies 'may be transferred'

Ben Marshall is in a stable condition

Health Minister Paul Goggins has said he cannot rule out seriously ill babies having to be transferred out of Northern Ireland again.

A critically ill baby who was airlifted to hospital in Liverpool on Friday due to a lack of beds in Northern Ireland is now in a stable condition.

Ben Marshall was transferred from the Ulster Hospital as no intensive care beds were available for babies.

Mr Goggins said what had happened to the Marshall family was unacceptable.

"I'm particlualry concerned about the reports that I've had that they were unable to travel with Ben in the aircraft to Liverpool on Friday evening," Mr Goggins said.

"The trauma of having to go to Liverpool is one thing, the trauma of separation of course would be doubly difficult.

"I've asked urgently for investigations to be made into why that happened and what we can do to ensure that kind of thing doesn't happen again."

Ben's mother, Michelle, said it had been a difficult time for the family.

"It is very hard to see him like this as he had sailed through intensive care and didn't need ventilated," she said.

"Now he just looks like a very ill wee baby. Although we know he is a fighter and he is doing well at the moment, it is very hard to believe that everything is going to work out."

Doctor Kent Thorborn, who is treating Ben, said he was on a ventilator.

"He is in a stable condition although he continues to need to have help for breathing," Dr Thorborn said.

"He came into us initially with problems of forgetting to breathe."

His parents have said intensive care services for children in Northern Ireland are not good enough.

Ben was born nine weeks premature and spent a month in hospital before being allowed home, but he then developed a chest infection.

His mother Michelle and her husband flew to Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool on Saturday.

His mother Michelle and her husband flew out on Saturday

Jennifer Kearney, a co-founder of the organisation, Life After Loss, which supports parents whose babies have died, said hospitals in Northern Ireland needed more resources to treat premature babies.

In September 2005, Mrs Kearney's daughter, Hannah, died shortly after she was born at 23 weeks.

"Had Hannah been born in Great Britain or over the border she would have been resuscitated and attempts would have been made to keep her alive," she said.

Resources

But Mrs Kearney said that the neo-natal centre was working to 136% capacity on the night Hannah was born and nothing could be done.

"The government guidelines say that from 22 weeks a baby should be resuscitated if parents wish that to happen and from 23 weeks a baby should be assessed," she said.

"That doesn't happen in Northern Ireland because there is no capacity. The service here works at a minimum of 100% all the time."

In a statement, the Department of Health said: "While each case of a small baby requiring to be transferred is very traumatic, the actual numbers involved are relatively small.

"In the last five years, only four newborn babies were transferred outside of Northern Ireland because there was no specialist cot available."

An additional neo-natal intensive care cot was opened in Craigavon in 2006.

An extra £800,000 has also been allocated for neo-natal paediatric intensive care services in 2007 - 2008.