{"id":418590,"date":"2026-04-30T15:55:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T15:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/418590\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T15:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T15:55:08","slug":"mother-and-baby-unit-a-significant-step-forward-health-minister-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/418590\/","title":{"rendered":"Mother and baby unit a &#8216;significant step forward&#8217;, health minister says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Being built alongside an existing acute mental health inpatient facility in the grounds of the Belfast City Hospital and proximity to obstetric-led maternity services at the Royal Jubilee Hospital, Nesbitt said was essential for safe, high-quality care.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Severe perinatal mental illness can escalate rapidly, and immediate access to specialist support can be lifesaving,&#8221; Nesbitt added in a statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;My decision reflects clear clinical advice from departmental officials, the Public Health Agency and Royal College of Psychiatrists&#8217; best-practice guidance.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Each year, about 100 women in Northern Ireland are admitted to adult psychiatric wards for care, without their babies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Liz Morrison of the charity, Action on Postpartum Psychosis, said they were &#8220;over the moon&#8221; at the minister&#8217;s  statement that the aim is for the unit to open &#8220;no later than 2028\/29&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;APP has been campaigning for a Northern Ireland MBU (mother and baby unit) since our inception in 2011, together with the mums and families affected by postpartum psychosis who we support. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We&#8217;ve waited far too long.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Being built alongside an existing acute mental health inpatient facility in the grounds of the Belfast City Hospital&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[163,85,46,522,523],"class_list":["post-418590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}