Border maternity shake-up 'would not remove care from hospital'
The preferred option for a shake-up in women's and maternity services across the Shropshire/North Wales border would not remove the obstetric-led maternity service from the Maelor Hospital in Wrexham, a meeting in Welshpool has heard.
Powys Teaching Health Board will meet on Monday to give its views on the Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board's proposed temporary changes.
About 200 women from Powys each year and others from Chirk and into Shropshire currently have their babies at the Wrexham Maelor unit.
Betsi Cadwaladr wants to close one of its three obstetric-led units at either Wrexham, Glan Clwyd near Rhyl or at Bangor because of a severe shortage of middle tier and junior specialist doctors.
Midwife-led maternity and special baby care would, however, remain at all three hospitals although with pre and postnatal care.
Angela Hopkins, director of nursing and midwifery at Betsi Cadwaladr, said the health board's preferred option would be to take obstetrics from Glan Clwyd on a temporary basis.
If this happened then planned breast surgery would have to move from Wrexham to Glan Clwyd. But the meeting heard the vast majority of women from Powys opted to have that surgery in Shropshire.
Mrs Hopkins said that the number of Powys women having their babies at Wrexham had risen from about 70 a year to 200 since the consultant unit in Shropshire had moved from Shrewsbury to Telford.
Mrs Frances Hunt, chairman of the Llanfyllin Patient Group Practice Patient Group, said patients from the Llanfyllin area already had to travel long distances to access hospital services.
"There are many mothers from this area for whom it is important to have their babies in Wales," she said. "If Wrexham was to lose its obstetric unit they would face having their baby in Telford or Chester."
Joy Jones, from Newtown, said that if Wrexham closed she believed that Telford would struggle to take more mothers-to-be. "I understand it is already full," she said.
Cath Langley, head of midwifery in Powys, urged more mothers to choose to have their babies in the midwife-led units in Welshpool and Newtown.
"Every pregnant woman needs a midwife but not every pregnant woman needs a doctor, " she said.
She said that of the 1,200 Powys women who gave birth every year about 40 per cent could have those babies in Powys.
However, she said only 20 per cent were actually born in Powys.
"We would love to see more women chose to have their baby in Powys," she said. A decision is likely to be made in November with the chosen unit closing shortly after that, unless the option of no change is made.
