Rotunda Hospital received less than half the funding requested last year for replacement of ageing and out of service equipment

The country’s busiest maternity hospital secured less than half the funding they sought last year for replacement of ageing, and sometimes failing equipment.

In some cases, equipment had reached end of its service life in 2014 and 2015 while some items were described as “technically obsolete”.

Other pieces of laboratory kit were said to be “causing lots of problems” while in other cases, management were warned they “cannot afford” for certain aging critical equipment to begin to fail or start creating issues.

A replacement programme list detailed €1.87 million worth of equipment that was in urgent need of replacement during 2020.

However, the hospital said the funding received from the HSE for the replacement programme last year had been €816,000.

A statement from the Rotunda said that there was traditionally a shortfall in funding and that they needed to “manage and mitigate this”.