Baby stillborn after mum despatched to a different hospital in Devon maternity scandal
Baby dies after pregnant woman has to travel to another hospital miles away because maternity unit had closed due to lack of doctors
Lack of consultants means North Devon District Hospital has closed its maternity unit (Image: DevonLive)
A baby was stillborn after a pregnant woman had to travel to another hospital due to the closure of her local maternity unit.
The baby’s death was raised at a council meeting about the controversial maternity unit suspension at North Devon District Hospital (NDDH) due to lack of doctors. It means pregnant women face up to a two-hour drive to give birth at Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust’s other hospital in Exeter – amid fears babies will be born in the back of cars and in lay-bys.
Addressing hospital leaders at the meeting at Devon County Council, Katy Quick, who runs campaign group Maternity Matters, said she had consent to share one couple’s experience after the mum called the trust’s maternity triage phone line.
Katie said: “She had reduced movements at 35 weeks pregnant and she wasn’t offered transport help, despite being high risk. [She] couldn’t get to Exeter immediately and when she did as soon as she could, while juggling a toddler and childcare as a full time working family… she was told that her baby was dead.”
Katie continued: “She was informed that she should have been told about the transport [available]. Like that was an answer to all the questions she’s been left with… questions like, if [the maternity ward] was open, would my daughter be alive?”
Over 120 mums have been redirected to Exeter to give birth since the trust suspended all births at the Barnstaple site on August 11 due to a lack of consultants and obstetricians. It is not known how many out of hospital deliveries this has resulted in.
Concerns from members of the public were aired at the meeting of the council’s Health and Adult Care Scrutiny Committee where one councillor called for trust chief executive Simon Higginson to resign.
Councillor Dermot McGeough said: “After repeated failures, a foreseeable staffing crisis and the loss of maternity services, will you now accept responsibility and resign Sir?”
The Maternity Matters campaign group to save North Devon’s maternity services is collating accounts from affected parents. Katie told the special meeting that the tragic couple had been left “with empty arms and only the promise of a meeting [with the trust] in November”.
The hospital trust has contacted around 300 pregnant women across the North Devon and Cornwall region it serves – which has a lack of main roads and poor public transport – to discuss how they might get to Exeter or another hospital in the region.
Vanessa Purday, chief medical officer at the trust, said: “We fully recognise the fear and anxiety the temporary suspension continues to create for families in our community. Our number one priority is to reopen these services as soon as possible and we are conducting a reopening ‘readiness assessment’ every two weeks.”
The trust initially announced that its maternity unit in Barnstaple would reopen on September 29 but it has since admitted that it is not on track to meet that date. This has escalated fears that the temporary closure could become permanent.
Concerns are increasing that the rise in complex births will lead to more maternity units at smaller hospitals across the country being closed to be consolidated into bigger regional maternity units.
One health leader responded to the closure at the trust by saying that NHS hospitals need to think about “consolidation into fewer, bigger [maternity] units”.
Marian Knight, who investigates maternal deaths for the MBRRACE-UK programme, said smaller hospitals lacked capacity for C-sections, which now account for around half of births in England as mums are now older on average.
Professor Knight told the Health Service Journal: “It will be politically unpopular. The North Devon situation [where births have been suspended for over a month] is difficult for women. It’s difficult for MPs…but [we need to] recognise that we may have to think about how we consolidate units to provide the quality of service that we need to be providing.”
It comes after a series of maternity scandals at NHS trusts across the country where short staffing contributed to babies being left brain damaged and sometimes dying during or shortly after birth.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “The situation in North Devon in recent weeks has been unacceptable, and our thoughts are with all those women and their families that have suffered unnecessary distress and concern at a crucial time because of the temporary closure of services at North Devon District Hospital.
“As the prime minister told the House of Commons earlier this month, we expect this situation to be resolved as soon as possible, and the health secretary has been in regular contact with the chief executive of NHS England towards that end.”
*Have you experienced problems related to the maternity closure at North Devon District Hospital? Email [email protected] to tell your story.
