Health boss must explain maternity situation
Oswestry Town Council wants the chief executive of Shrewsbury and Telford trust to visit the town to explain the current closure of the local maternity unit.
The council has invited Simon Wright the trust's chief executive, to its full council meeting on July 17. It has not yet heard whether Mr Wright will accept the invitation.
The trust has suspended deliveries and post natal in patient care at the midwife led unit, housed at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt orthopaedic hospital, for the next three months and possibly up to six months because of staff shortages within the trust.
Day time pre and post natal appointments continue as normal.
At Wednesday's town council meeting Councillor Paul Milner, a member of the Oswestry Health Forum, said SATH had let Oswestry down.
"At a meeting of the Health forum two or three months ago we were assured that the unit would remain open. Now in patient beds are shut for up to three months and maybe six.
"The people of Oswestry have been let down."
The town council is also to ask the town's four county councillors to put forward a motion that Shropshire Council does what it can to see the unit fully reopened.
Councillor Duncan Kerr said: "Our four county councillors should be doing something to support the unit. Shropshire Council has an important role to play as a social care authority."
A march against the closure will be held in Oswestry on Sunday. Hundreds of people are expected to join the march from the town centre to the Orthopaedic Hospital. It will leave the Guildhall at 10.30am.
