There are 23 beds available for premature babies in neonatal wards at the CHL and the Boher clinic, the health ministry . There is no fixed number of beds for maternal intensive care patients as these form part of the post-partum wards.

The grand duchy in recent years has been left unable to cope with these kinds of medical emergencies. In 2020, eight pregnant women requiring intensive care treatment while pregnant had to be transferred to a hospital outside the country, the ministry said. This number was already at 20 for the first half of this year.

The ministry did not indicate a reason for the 2020 dip, which compared to 42 transfers in 2019. A total of 6,459 babies were born in Luxembourg in 2020, up from 6,230 the year before.

Four families had to receive treatment elsewhere for their premature babies. This number was comparatively stable, from three preemies in 2019 and six the year before.

The data is likely to be incomplete as hospitals don’t have to report patient transfers made to other countries in instances where the wards were full. While numbers can be traced through the public health insurance system, Luxembourg does not have access to the data of patients covered by the European institutions, the ministry said.

Additionally, some parents may choose to give birth abroad without there being a medical emergency.

The ministry said it would “make sense” to more comprehensively collect and analyse data to get a better picture of the situation before deciding what kind of action might be needed.