Debate contribution: Mother-and-baby Unit

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 7 October 2025.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

7 October 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Mother-and-baby Unit

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5164637

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank the Member for West Belfast for tabling this important motion, and I thank everybody who has spoken in the debate. As we have heard, as many as one in five women experience mental health problems in pregnancy or after birth, and around 100 women are admitted to general psychiatric wards, with 35 being admitted for postpartum psychosis. In large part, that is because we do not have a mother-and-baby unit where women can receive the care that they need while pregnant or in the first 12 months of their baby's life. That is shameful. It speaks a lot to how we view and treat mental health generally and how women, in particular, are viewed and treated in the healthcare system and in society. As has been stated, there are 22 mother-and-baby units in Britain, but Ireland has zilch. Successive Health Ministers have agreed that we need a mother-and-baby unit. Families have been waiting at least 20 years for that life-saving service, but, as with many things here, it is like waiting for Godot. It is an embarrassment and a source of shame that we have made no material progress. A mother-and-baby unit is a space where mothers can foster and build the mother-infant bond that would otherwise be harmed by separation. Separating women who need hospital admission for mental health from their young babies is inhumane. It is inhumane, yet that is what happens to dozens of women every year. Women have described that experience as "disorientating" and "traumatising". As Members have said, the story of Shelley Browne, which was covered by 'Spotlight', speaks to that. Shelley was separated from her newborn baby and admitted to a general psychiatric hospital for five weeks. She reported feeling like a prisoner after giving birth. That is totally unacceptable. Other mothers refuse the hospital treatment that they need and instead rely on specialist community teams in order to stay with their newborn children. As has been mentioned, Orlaith Quinn died by suicide at the Royal Jubilee Maternity Hospital less than 48 hours after giving birth to her daughter. I believe that she had no previous mental health issues. Four years later, an inquest found that her death had been "foreseeable and preventable"; really cruel and shameful stuff. The same inquest also recommended that a mother-and-baby unit be established, yet, four years on, there is nothing. The debacle of our absent mother-and-baby unit is yet another symptom of our mental health crisis. Our legacy of conflict, inequality and poverty means that people with poor mental health in the North suffer from more severe and debilitating conditions than in Britain and Ireland. Despite that well-known fact, we continue to spend less on mental health services than other regions, with £157 per capita spent in the North compared with £252 in England. Our mental health strategy needs £42 million of funding, but, last year, actual funding was just £5·9 million, a paltry sum. Part of that money delivered perinatal mental health teams across all five trusts, as has been stated, and the strengthening of those services is to be broadly welcomed. However, the Maternal Mental Health Alliance reports issues with it, including a lack of variation of services and a lack of implementation and funding of the mental health strategy. Each health trust receives more than 250 referrals for community perinatal services each year, but, because of staffing pressures, only 70 patients are accepted — women being failed again. The interim temporary units are far from a perfect solution and are no substitute for a permanent mother-and-baby facility designed according to the needs of families, but an interim unit where mothers could receive the care that they need without being cruelly separated from their newborn child would provide some hope for mothers. Like the Member for North Belfast, I question the logic of the clinical advice that the Minister states for why they cannot be used. The business case for a mother-and-baby unit is almost a year overdue. I suspect that the Minister will tell us today that the case is finalised or close to being finalised but that any future funding depends on funding being identified. That is a line that is continuously rolled out by his Department. Strategies without funding are nothing more than abstract reports, and business cases without funding are absolutely meaningless. We do not need another review, however short. Those who support families and newborn baby organisations, such as the Maternal Mental Health Alliance, the Maternal Advocacy and Support (MAs) project, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Action on Postpartum Psychosis and TinyLife, have been campaigning on the issue for decades. Women and families tell us that we urgently need a life-saving mother-and-baby unit. It is time for the Health Minister to deliver on it, and it is time for the Executive to fund it.

805 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:21 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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