'It's a tragedy babies won't be born in QEII' (From St Albans & Harpenden Review)

'It's a tragedy babies won't be born in QEII'

5:30pm Thursday 31st July 2008

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EXPECTANT mothers could soon be giving birth on the A1M warns MP Grant Shapps as plans to move maternity services from the QEII to Stevenage’s Lister gets a definite thumbs up.

East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust approved plans to invest £15.5 million into expanding the Lister’s maternity unit, enabling it to support over 5,500 births every year from its planned opening date in late 2010.

But the decision to consolidate maternity services, included in last year’s Delivering quality healthcare for Hertfordshire Consultation, will mean women in Welwyn Hatfield who don’t opt for a home birth are forced to travel to Stevenage to have their babies.

Welwyn Hatfield MP Grant Shapps, said: “I think it’s a great tragedy that babies won’t be born in the QEII any more.

“In the future expectant mothers will have to travel further while in labour and families will find it harder to visit new born children because the Government has allowed maternity services at the QEII to be axed.

“We will be in a situation at some point where the Lister simply can’t cope and people will be driving around trying to find somewhere to give birth.

“We are going to see babies born on the A1M because of the stupidity,” he warned.

Plans to close maternity services at the QEII comes just five years after the unit benefited from a £750,000 makeover.

But the trust insists the investment was not a waste of taxpayers’ money.

The trust’s spokesman Peter Gibson said: "By the time the new expanded maternity unit service for all of east and north Hertfordshire's residents opens at the Lister in late 2010, that refurbishment at the QEII will have come to the end of its natural usable life. In that sense it represents money well spent."

And the trust urges women in the borough not to be alarmed by the changes to maternity services.

Ante natal and post ante natal care, including ultra sound scans, routine check ups and specialist clinics will continue to be provided at the QEII.

The trust’s clinical director for women’s services, Mr Robert Sattin, said: “In addition to helping to create greater choice for women by developing our maternity services in this way, it will also enable us to make even greater quality improvements.

“By bringing together our specialist maternity staff onto a single site means that our most senior doctors and midwives will be available for longer periods every day.

“This is a widely recognised factor in improving the care that women and their unborn babies receive, especially for more complicated pregnancies or those that develop unexpected problems while giving birth.”

The East of England Strategic Health Authority now will have to it's approval to the plans and work is expected to begin in spring 2009.

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