Portlaoise hospital’s maternity service is as safe as its been in years, but there is no guarantee that the unit will survive in the long term according to Minister for Health, Leo Varadkar.
Speaking to the Leinster Express after visiting Portlaoise last Wednesday, he said he hoped the community had confidence in the hospital.
However, he could not guarantee the future of what services would be kept .“What I can assure people, and this doesn’t just apply to Portlaoise, it applies to special services all over the country, decisions that are made about reorganising services are made in the interest of patient safety and outcomes - not to save money and not on financial grounds. If anything reconfiguration is going to cost us money,” he said.