The North’s Public Health Agency has instructed that all babies who were transferred to other hospitals from the Royal Jubilee Maternity Hospital in Belfast and Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry since November must be screened for the pseudomonas infection.
The checks are to take place after three babies died this month from the pseudomonas bacteria, while one baby died at Altnagelvin before Christmas from a different strain of the infection. The agency’s assistant director, Dr Lorraine Doherty, said screening would probably happen at all neo- natal units in Northern Ireland. It was confirmed yesterday that a seventh baby being treated for pneumonia at the Royal does, as suspected, have the infection.
