Derriford Hospital: Covid-19 at 'peak' in labour ward

Staff have been coping despite numbers being significantly down due to Covid absences

Covid-19 levels in the labour ward at Plymouth's Derriford Hospital reached "an absolute peak" in recent weeks.

An average of 50% of women on the labour wards had Covid-19 on any one day, a council meeting heard.

The hospital trust told Plymouth City Council part of the reason was fewer pregnant women having been vaccinated compared with the general population.

Hospital bosses said pregnant women were at greater risk of getting seriously ill from Covid-19.

Women have not been able to be with their families because of restricted visiting during the peak of the pandemic

Sue Wilkins, director of mass vaccination, flu and testing at University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust, said the Omicron outbreak was just the latest part of what had been an extremely difficult two years for Plymouth's maternity services.

Four women on Derriford's labour ward needed to go into intensive care for Covid-19 during the pandemic, she told a meeting of the council's Health and Wellbeing Board.

Women had not been able to be with their families because of restricted visiting during the most severe stages of the pandemic, the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) reported.

Ms Wilkins said hospital visits had "probably been the most complicated and tricky thing to manage throughout the pandemic".

She said: "Prolonged separation of parents when patients have required NICU (Newborn Intensive Care Unit) admission has been devastating for us all to see."

She said the maternity teams had shown "absolutely exemplar teamwork" with staff supporting each other with "the wish to do the very best for families when there have been times when we've had probably a third of the workforce we would have had available to us pre-Covid".

A spokesperson for University Hospital's Plymouth NHS Trust, which runs Derriford, said: "We continue to encourage women to take up the offer of their covid vaccination. It is safe for women to attend all appointments so please continue to contact your midwife or the maternity department if you have any concerns. 

"Please be assured that anyone who tests positive for covid-19 will be cared for in a dedicated area of the maternity department, whatever stage of their pregnancy journey."