Born on the A75 ... the scandal of the layby babies

Outcry as SNP cuts to maternity service force mums to give birth before they reach hospital

ANGRY mothers who have been forced to give birth by the roadside because their nearest maternity hospital is up to 75 miles away have called for ‘drastic action’ before someone dies.

Health Secretary Humza Yousaf is already under pressure to improve maternity services in the North-East – particularly after two women had to deliver their babies in laybys because they could not reach hospital in time.

Now families in Dumfries and Galloway say the lives of women and their unborn children are also being put at risk because they have to travel similarly long distances to give birth.

Stranraer had its maternity unit downgraded more than three years ago, leaving mothers-tobe with no choice but to travel to the region’s main maternity hospital 75 miles away. Now an action group set up in Stranraer claims there are numerous examples of women giving birth by the side of the road in family cars and ambulances. It has called on Mr Yousaf to fast-track an independent review of services.

Two weeks ago on a visit to Elgin, Moray, where parents have been campaigning to have maternity services at Dr Gray’s Hospital drastically improved, Mr Yousaf admitted he would not want his child to be born in a layby. His comments followed news that two mothers had to do that in the past six months at the side of the A96.

But despite an invitation to meet the Galloway Community Hospital Action Group (GCHAG) in Stranraer to see the problems first-hand, he has so far declined, instead asking public health minister Maree Todd to step in.

Yesterday Gina Ellis, 28, from Stranraer, who had to deliver her baby daughter in the back of an ambulance just off the A75, said:

‘It’s terrifying. They are playing with lives’

‘It’s absolutely terrifying. They are playing with people’s lives.’

Her daughter Nieve’s birth certificate lists her arrival at ‘Drumflower Road End, Dunragit’, an entry that leaves Ms Ellis ‘sad and embarrassed’ for her child.

The issue goes back more than three-and-a-half years to when staff shortages at the maternity centre at Galloway Community Hospital meant it was no longer able to carry out deliveries.

Among the harrowing accounts heard by Ms Todd, during an online meeting with the action group, was that of Claire Fleming, 32, a mother of three from Glenluce, Wigtownshire, who described how she had been expected to drive herself to Dumfries to deliver her stillborn baby and, after suffering three miscarriages, had had to make a 120-mile return journey each time.

Mrs Fleming added that she had been contacted by around 120 women who were now ‘scared’ of getting pregnant. Yesterday, she told this newspaper: ‘It has become a dangerous postcode lottery.’

Last night retired GP Dr Angela Armstrong, who is a member of the GCHAG, said: ‘As a doctor, it would certainly scare me to deliver a baby in a layby.’ NHS Dumfries and Galloway said it faced ‘very significant challenges’ around recruiting for a birthing centre in Stranraer.

It also highlighted that only 17 births had taken place at the site in 2017 – the year before that service was suspended – and said scans have been able to be delivered locally again since 2020.

In Moray, where most women have to go to either Aberdeen Maternity Hospital or Raigmore Hospital in Inverness to give birth, the campaign group Keep Mum is calling for consultant-led services to be reinstated at Dr Gray’s.

The Scottish Government has said it expects all health boards to provide maternity services ‘as close to home as possible’. It said it recognised the challenges facing remote areas and was working with NHS Dumfries and Galloway.