And we are probably yet to see the full effect of it.
According to a leading consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, the stringent restrictions on partner visits to maternity services are now having an impact on mental health services.
Speaking on
Newstalk's Hard Shoulder, Dr Mary McCaffrey says the focus to date is on the scans and other appointments being missed, but there are also other, more long-term effects, of the curtailing of partner visits.
This revelation comes as some Irish maternity hospitals are still restricting access to some services for partners and husbands, even though the HSE has issued guidance to
all hospitals around partners being allowed in.
As we have seen in countless reports over the past year-and-half, many, many women have spoken out about the impact the restrictions have had on them and their mental health.
Dr McCaffrey - who is also a former president of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association – told the Hard Shoulder it's not just the restrictions on the partner visits themselves that are causing problems.
“As the restrictions continue, the impact of the anxiety that has developed is now trickling out into mental health services," she explains.
“I spoke to a psychotherapist at the weekend - he [noted] the number of male clients he’s now getting with anxiety over all of what they’ve been through. Some of them have PTSD."
Dr McCaffrey also said the restrictions also aren't just about scans, noting many women's early contacts with midwives are now happening over the phone instead of in person.
"We can't even see who is in the room answering the questions we ask about domestic violence and mental health issues," McCaffrey reveals.
"And yet we know domestic violence has gone up during COVID."
She believes officials - including public health doctors - now need to sit down and figure out what the solution is when it comes to easing restrictions.
“We hear infrastructure is the problem - it would be nice if we could find out if the estates and planning part of the HSE could come and see if there’s anything different we could do within the maternity units to make the infrastructure safer.
“Should we be looking at how we can spread out the women in the wards, so there is social distancing so that partners can be in? In our hospital, we probably have space to do that… but maybe the bigger ones don’t.
“The other thing is again down to staffing and resources. If when partners come with their pregnant partner to a maternity unit… if there could be faster turnaround of their PCR test, so they might only be waiting 30 mins or an hour. This would take more staff and lab staff and resources… I don’t know if that’s possible.”
