Health secretary Humza Yousaf on way to Wick to hear Caithness Health Action Teams concerns
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Humza Yousaf, the Scottish health secretary, is due to visit Caithness later today to hear campaigners' concerns over maternity care and other issues.
The Scottish Government minister will meet members of Caithness Health Action Team (CHAT) in Wick on Monday afternoon.
His trip comes after CHAT and other campaigners as well as politicians urged Mr Yousaf to come and see for himself the problems being faced here.
The consultant-led maternity unit at Caithness General hospital in Wick was downgraded in 2016 to a midwife-led facility and most women in the far north now give birth at Raigmore in Inverness.
CHAT chairman Ron Gunn said: "We are delighted the health secretary is coming to Caithness as we feel we have been ignored for far too long.
"We will be raising our concerns about the maternity situation here and pointing out that 92 per cent of local mothers have to go to Inverness to give birth, with one or two having to go to Aberdeen."
Mr Gunn said they would also be asking for an independent review of maternity similar to the one they got in Elgin.
The review into maternity services at Dr Gray’s Hospital in Elgin looked at how a safe, deliverable and sustainable consultant-led service could be reinstated. Maternity services at the NHS Grampian unit were re-designated in July 2018 because of staff shortages.
"We sympathise very much with Elgin but we are in a worse position than them as we have to travel further and have been doing so for a couple of years longer.
"We would really like the health minister to listen to our concerns and want an independent enquiry and risk assessment to be undertaken to see how safe it is for pregnant mothers to travel down the A9 to give birth. We will also be suggesting that more use could be made of the community midwife unit at Caithness General and see if the number of births can be increased there as, at present, it is only about eight per cent," said Mr Gunn.
"Ideally, we would like a consultant-led maternity unit back in Wick but feel the Orkney model – a midwife-led unit supported by consultants – would work for Caithness. We have similar populations and birth rates at about 200 a year.
"Around 80 per cent of mothers give birth in Orkney compared to eight per cent here. If we could get up to that figure in Caithness it would make a big difference to mothers and families in the area," he added.
Mr Gunn said while maternity will be the main focus of discussion, he hopes other health topics, including mental health, dentistry, women's health and patient transport can also be highlighted.
The meeting will be held in the Norseman Hotel in Wick.
