Health Minister must provide answers to mums-to-be facing winter journey to Aberdeen when she visits Moray
Moray MP Douglas Ross has urged Health Minister Jeane Freeman to act and sort out the continuing problems with Moray’s maternity service when she visits Elgin on Wednesday. The local MP has said that the visit must provide tangible results rather than being another tick-box exercise of visiting the area without announcing solid proposals to return the maternity services to Moray.
Douglas said: “Since the Minister’s previous visit to Elgin several months ago and the various promises made, we have seen little practical improvement in the service provided to mums-to-be. The news that two locum paediatricians have been secured to work in Elgin has been immediately qualified by statements from NHS Grampian that we may lose the service again in February. Meanwhile campaigners continue to express concern about poor communication and a lack of clarity about the service local people can expect despite the promise by Ms Freeman to have a clear plan in place weeks ago. There has been very little consultation with local people despite all the promises, they are one of the best sources of information but seemed to be ignored in this process.
“In the meantime, winter has arrived and the majority of expectant mums are still expected to travel all the way to Aberdeen to give birth. I agree with the Keep Mum group that the safest option has to be a consultant-led service at Dr Gray’s but am fearful that we may end up in the same position as some Highland communities who seem to have permanently lost their consultant-led services. It is vitally important that the entire Moray community continues to keep up the pressure.
“NHS Grampian is the worst funded health board in Scotland, and even in Grampian, Moray seems to lose out to Aberdeen when it comes to investment. With an extra £550m coming to the Scottish Government to spend on health as a result of the recent budget, there really is no excuse for a failure to significantly improve the service for Moray.”