Report to the People
10th December 2007
Give it a Chance
Given our
battles with various Health Boards and medical chiefs over the years, it’s no
wonder our community views any “review” of our health services with
suspicion.
But, to be
fair to the Independent Scrutiny Panel which was drafted in to examine the
Board’s plans to remove the Community Midwife Unit (CMU) from the IRH, it
seems they’ve listened to our arguments.
When I met
the scrutiny panel at the public meeting in Greenock and in the parliament, I
made the point that the dust has hardly settled after the last maternity
reorganisation. This, you’ll
recall, was the reorganisation which set up the midwife-led unit in the first
place, so shouldn’t it be given time to bed in?
The behaviour
of the old, discredited and now disbanded Argyll and Clyde Board made it
difficult for local expectant mothers to have confidence in any service they
established. So it is, I told panel
Chair, Professor Angus Mackay, little wonder that they are far from enthusiastic
about the maternity-led unit.
Work,
therefore, needs to be done to reassure women about the safety and advantages of
CMUs. Only then will those
expectant mums for whom CMUs are appropriate choose to give birth there.
And the
expert panel agrees - they say the unit should be kept open for another three
years while efforts are made to increase usage.
This makes
perfect sense and the Health Board now needs to show that it’s taking the
panel’s findings seriously.
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