Obstetricians have today attempted to reassure women about maternity services in Ireland following the Prime Time documentary revelations on infant deaths at Portlaoise Hospital's maternity unit.

The HSE has now apologised for care failings linked to four deaths outlined in the programme. The infants died  either during labour or within a week of birth.

Prof Fionnuala McAuliffe, spokesperson for the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said: "We would like to extend our sympathies to the parents and families mentioned in last night's programme, who have suffered greatly. The death of every baby is an absolute tragedy and very traumatic for families."

She said while there were many pregnant women and their families who may be worried, the Institute would like to reassure them that they can have confidence in our maternity services.

"Ireland is a very safe country in which to have a baby. We have low rates of perinatal deaths (still births and death of a baby up to seven days after a child is born) when compared to neighbouring counties such as the UK or France, and this rate continues to fall here," Prof Mc Auliffe said.

"Advances in our antenatal, obstetric and neonatal care have resulted in a declining perinatal mortality rate. This rate has fallen by 10% in the four year's since the National Perinatal Epidemiology Centre (NPEC) reported national figures. This information is independently compiled, monitored and publicly available. All maternity units voluntarily report this data to NPEC."

The NPEC report, however, gives anonymised data for infant death rates at the country's maternity units, which does not name the units. Nor is an annual clinical report with clinical details of infant deaths published for the Portlaoise unit.

Prof McAuliffe said while we have good outcomes in our maternity services, when things go wrong, we must learn from mistakes.

"One of the key learnings from last night's programme is that the suffering of the families was heightened by the lack of open communication. There must be a culture of openness and transparency across our health services in terms of how we communicate with families."

"We have low rates of perinatal mortality despite the fact that our maternity services are understaffed and under- resourced. Ireland has the lowest number of obstetricians per 100,000 women across all OECD countries. We need more resources to maintain and improve standards of care. We must also maximise how we use existing resources," Prof McAuliffe added.

Meanwhile, Patient Focus today called on senior management at Portlaoise Hospital, including the clinical director and director of nursing and midwifery, to publicly reassure pregnant women about changes they have made to ensure safe care for them and their babies at the hospital.

"We are very pleased to hear that the fetal blood monitoring machine is now in place in the Midland Regional Hospital and we hope that all staff are now fully trained in its use."

Patient Focus has called for:

* An independent review of the maternity unit in Portlaoise.

* A review, again independent of the HSE, of the maternity unit in Mullingar Hospital given the absence of the fetal blood monitoring machine there.

* The establishment of a patient safety authority, not an agency on an administrative basis within the HSE.

* The introduction of a legal duty of candour in the Irish health system.

Department of Health Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan is to investigate the deaths of the four babies at Portlaoise.

HSE apologises over infant deaths