Maternity care move ‘will hit poorer mums-to-be’
High-risk pregnancies service transfers to Pembury
Vulnerable mums-to-be will be forced to travel up to 20 miles as maternity services are downgraded.
From Monday, Maidstone Hospital’s Maternity Day Unit (MDU), which cares for women with high risk pregnancies, is being closed and merged with the busier clinic at Tunbridge Wells Hospital, Pembury.
NHS bosses insist the change will provide safer and better care by ensuring they can easily get access to the best treatment.
But critics say it will impact on some of the County Town’s most vulnerable women, many of whom come from deprived backgrounds.
Helen Grant, MP for Maidstone and the Weald, has asked for an urgent meeting with Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust’s (MTW) chief executive Glenn Douglas.
MTW says the MDU unit sees roughly five women a day or 1,300 visits a year in a midwife- led assessment. Other sources have disputed this, saying the figure is double.
Consultant-led obstetric antenatal clinics, and the care of women with low risk pregnancies, will continue at Maidstone Hospital, along with the birth centre.
Overall MTW looks after 6,000 pregnant women each year. The decision was made after a review of antenatal services.
Alan Pentecost, a retired obstetrician, said: “I feel the proposed move is predictable but reprehensible. At the very start of our shotgun marriage with Pembury I felt there would be a struggle for power between the two centres and most outcomes would be decided by ease of administration and the loudest voices.
“Closure of this service in Maidstone would particularly disadvantage our poorer patients who have neither the finance or often the inclination to travel a long and inconvenient distance for such needs.”
Jenny Cleary, head of midwifery, said: “This is an important improvement in care for an important group of women and will help ensure we continue to provide, and they continue to receive, the safest possible maternity services.”
In January, a coroner concluded primary school teacher Frances Cappuccini died after suffering a fatal cardiac arrest hours after giving birth by caesarean section at Tunbridge Wells Hospital in October 2012.
A coroner has found a primary school teacher died as a result of a catalogue of failings by Tunbridge Wells Hospital. The trust apologised and said changes had been made.