{"id":492269,"date":"2026-06-10T10:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T10:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/492269\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T10:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T10:24:08","slug":"public-or-private-share-your-experience-of-maternity-care-in-ireland-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/492269\/","title":{"rendered":"Public or private? Share your experience of maternity care in Ireland \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Much has been written in recent days about the choice between public and private care that expectant parents face. We\u2019d like to hear about your experiences of both systems in the comment box below. <\/p>\n

A political row<\/a> began at the end of last month after Prof Se\u00e1n Daly, master of the Rotunda<\/a>, told the Oireachtas health committee the hospital was allowing public-only consultants to continue to treat patients on a private basis.<\/p>\n

After a five-day stand-off<\/a> between the hospital and Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, who threatened to withdraw funding from the maternity hospital, the hospital\u2019s board climbed down from its position. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Kathy Sheridan: Private healthcare made little difference to my husband or me. So our daughter went publicOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

After a short meeting on Monday evening, the board of governors of the Rotunda disclosed that it has \u201cunanimously decided to bring the hospital\u2019s arrangements into line with the Government\u2019s policy on the terms of the public-only consultant contract\u201d.<\/p>\n

If you have given birth in one of the State\u2019s maternity hospitals, The Irish Times would like to hear about your experience with either the public or private system. <\/p>\n

Did you choose public or private care \u2013 and what was your experience like? What factors went into making your decision? If you chose private care, did you begin in the public system and switch, or choose a private consultant from the outset? If you went privately, was it money well spent, or do you feel public care would have been sufficient? The Irish Times would like to hear your views.<\/p>\n

You can let us know what you think using the form below. Please limit your submissions to 400 words or less. Please include a phone number for verification purposes only. We will keep your contact details confidential. If you would prefer to remain anonymous in any published articles, please indicate this in your submission.<\/p>\n

We will curate a selection of submissions for an article but please note we may not publish every submission we receive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Much has been written in recent days about the choice between public and private care that expectant parents…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":492270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[66376,2120,61,60,1421,43,9386,629],"class_list":["post-492269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-have-your-say","tag-hse","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jennifer-carroll-macneill","tag-news","tag-pregnancy","tag-rotunda-hospital"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}