Delivering the Future

Book excerpt: For over 275 years, the Rotunda Hospital has been at the forefront of maternity services in Ireland. In Delivering the Future: Reflections of a Rotunda Master, Sam Coulter-Smith celebrates the history of the hospital, with a particular focus on the last thirty years, and explains why voluntary hospitals, with their ability to lead, adapt, research, and provide the best clinical services to their patients, play a vital role in maintaining and improving standards in our health service. Along with personal stories from a professional life that has revolved around the Rotunda, Prof. Coulter-Smith explores the recent developments in the Irish hospital service, particularly on the back of the Covid-19 pandemic, and how the independence of Ireland’s surviving voluntary hospitals is being stealthily eroded by current government policy and HSE controls, to the detriment of the entire health service. He also examines what we can learn from how our health service has been managed in the past and questions how we can use this learning to plan for a better future.