Maree Todd says it would be ‘unacceptable’ to return to ‘unsafe’ maternity model in Wick
Far north MSP Maree Todd has again defended the controversial decision to axe the consultant-led maternity service in Wick.
Speaking to local community representatives, she insisted that it was taken on clinical grounds because of safety fears.
At the same time, the social care, mental health and sport minister pledged to continue to lobby to increase the number of women who give birth at Caithness General.
Following the introduction of the midwife-led unit in 2017, Caithness Health Action Team has spearheaded the campaign on behalf of local women who regularly face 200-mile-plus return trips to Inverness. Last year, there were 208 births at Raigmore in Inverness and just 12 at the Wick hospital.
Ms Todd was asked at Wednesday evening’s meeting of the Association of Caithness Community Councils if she would support the reinstatement of the consultant service in Wick.
She said that as a politician, she did not feel competent to over-rule medical experts who had deemed the previous regime unsafe.
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“That is why NHS Highland made the change,” she said. “They believed there were avoidable deaths associated with the model.
“I’d feel very uncomfortable to go back to that model when it was deemed to have caused harm. That is just not acceptable.”
She rejected suggestions that a midwife-led service should be viewed as a downgrading, claiming that in most other areas it is viewed as “the gold standard”.
But Ms Todd says she takes every opportunity to push the health authority to increase the number of babies who can safely be delivered at Caithness General.
She said it was anomalous that the number is so low in Wick while the midwife-run unit in Oban – also run by NHS Highland – has one of the highest rates of local births in the country.
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“I have asked why it can have within its area a unit with the highest rate of births and a unit with one of the lowest.”
The MSP said she would ask the question at a forthcoming meeting with the health board’s newly appointed chief midwife.
Ms Todd also believed that in doing away with consultants at the Wick unit, full account had not been taken of the impact this would have on gynaecological services for far north women. This, she said, has led to more women having to access Raigmore.
Ms Todd said this issue has been repeatedly underlined to her at meetings with local campaigners.
Association chair Alistair Ferrier said: “The feeling up here is that mothers are getting a second-class service.”
Caithness West representative Nicky Herd said the risk assessment of the maternity service has failed to factor in the dangers expectant mums face in travelling down and up the A9.
She said: “Ambulances, after all, have less resources than a hospital in the event of an emergency.”
She raised the case of a far north mother who in November 2018 gave birth to premature twins in two hospitals after being rushed south – one in Lawson Hospital in Golspie and one in Raigmore.
Wick Community Council treasurer Joanna Coghill said the danger of centralising services in one hospital, such as Raigmore, is that it can overstretch its resources.