Ross: Health minister has to provide solutions to maternity unit crisis
Moray MP, Douglas Ross has said that Health Secretary Jeane Freeman must provide solutions when she visits Moray to discuss the crisis at Dr Gray’s Hospital. Today he received a response from Ms Freeman after he wrote to her on the day it was announced maternity services at Dr Gray’s were being downgraded. The Health Secretary is visit Moray tomorrow (Friday).
Douglas said: “In the last week we have learnt that the paediatric department at Dr Gray’s will be closed over weekends and this is on top of the unresolved crisis leading to most expectant mums having to travel to Aberdeen to have their babies. Meanwhile we know from reports that NHS Grampian must cut £70m. It’s no wonder that people across Moray are so worried.”
Douglas revealed that he had received a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Health today (Thursday) in response to his appeal for action.
He said: “In her letter Jeane Freeman states the Scottish Government is taking action to increase medical undergraduate places at Dr Gray’s and that by 2020 the numbers will increase. That is welcome but sounds like too little and too late. She also states that NHS Highland has agreed that Raigmore Hospital in Inverness has agreed to receive emergency transfers of mothers booked to deliver in Dr Gray’s who experience difficulty in labour or birth and require obstetric intervention. And yet a constituent contacted me yesterday who has been refused a planned admittance to Raigmore when she gives birth.”
“It is imperative that Jeane Freeman provides a level of reassurance to the people of Moray that the representatives from NHS Grampian were unable to give at last week’s public meeting. We need to hear that there is a plan in place with agreed timelines. It is completely unacceptable that anyone, apart from those with exceptional needs, should be expected to travel to Aberdeen to give birth. This would be bad enough at any time, but during the long winter months it adds a whole level of stress and concern that expectant families shouldn’t have to worry about. The Health Secretary must accept the downgrading of the maternity services at Dr Gray’s is a backward step and do everything possible to reinstate the provision we expect in Moray.”