McNulty MLA on Possible Maternity Closure: “The Patients of Daisy Hill Hospital Deserve Better”
Mr McNulty stated:
“I am very disturbed by the rumours and speculation today coming after an emergency meeting was called this morning by Southern Trust management announcing a potential temporary closure of Daisy Hill’s maternity services and a consolidation of maternity services at one site at Craigavon Area Hospital. Senior midwives at Daisy Hill have been in touch with me this morning raising their concerns.
First and foremost, I am thinking now about the sense of anxiety and uncertainty this news will bring for expectant mothers and their families and for the maternity teams at both Daisy Hill Hospital and Craigavon Area Hospital.
This is the Trust’s classic playbook tactic. Transformation by collapse. We have seen it with stroke services, we’ve seen it with emergency general surgery, we’ve seen it with our type 1 acute emergency department, and now we are seeing it with maternity at Daisy Hill. They tell the public that there is a necessary temporary closure, then they tell us about an emphasis on patient safety, then the service is removed. Daisy Hill and the patients they serve in Newry, and in South Armagh, and in South Down are always the last to get, first to lose through the Trust’s tried and tested playbook for service closure and withdrawal.
Through Assembly Questions, the following information has been provided by Minister of Health, where the number of caesarean sections performed over the last five years at Daisy Hill are 4,458, and at Craigavon are 5,134. Over 800 caesarean sections were performed at Daisy Hill Hospital last year, which further shows how important it is that we protect that vital life-saving and life-giving service. Can Craigavon’s maternity ward cope with a doubling of numbers based on a closure, temporary or otherwise?
I want to thank all the hard-working midwives and maternity staff at Daisy Hill Hospital and Craigavon Area Hospital, who have always demonstrated a powerfully positive esprit de corps and extraordinary expertise, along with genuine care and support for expectant mothers and their families. Every family should be able to have their child in the same hospital as they were born. The patients of Daisy Hill Hospital deserve better. I have said it before, and I will say it again: Daisy Hill should be expanded to be a hub hospital serving its natural hinterland on a cross border basis.”
ENDS