Friends of Crowborough Hospital and Sussex Weald MP Nusrat Ghani held a protest rally on Thursday, October 2, against a decision to pause births at the hospital for nine months.
The Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, which runs the unit, made the ‘difficult decision’ due to ongoing staff shortages.
The Trust has confirmed that community antenatal and postnatal services will continue at Crowborough Birthing Centre, which is inside Crowborough War Memorial Hospital.
They said: “Our priority is to provide safe, high-quality and reliable maternity care for families, and we are working with partners across Kent and Sussex to look at how we deliver a long-term, sustainable service.”
Streaming live on Facebook from the protest, Ms Ghani, said the protestors want the birthing centre to reopen.
She said: “You need to put the midwives in place so women can have safe midwifery-led births here.”
Ms Ghani called the number of women who attended the protest ‘tremendous’. She said: “We’re surrounded by mums – mums who are pregnant, mums who have babies, those who have been denied the opportunity to have babies at the midwifery-led centre here and those that are looking forward to having their babies here if the birthing centre opens up.”
She said: “This is the evidence that there there women who want to have their babies here if the local NHS Trust would reopen it.”
Kay Moss, chair of The Friends of Crowborough Hospital, said she was ‘absolutely overwhelmed’ by the turnout. She said: “There’s all generations here today. There’s people whose children and grandchildren have been born here and we want that continue for future generations. It’s about women having the choice of where they want to give birth and this unit is exemplary. There’s never been a bad word said about it and we want all the local women to continue to have that choice.”
The MP’s petition to reopen the centre is at www.nusghani.org.uk/birthingcentre. It’s original goal was to get 3,000 signatures by Thursday, which was the first day of the planned hiatus.
Before the protest, a spokesperson for Friends of Crowborough Hospital said: “Crowborough families deserve the right to give birth locally, safely, and with choice. The Crowborough Birth Centre remains temporarily closed – and we will not stand by.”
After the protest, the group said on Facebook: “Huge thanks to Nus Ghani and Natalie Whittle and other councillors, as well as the 250-plus local members of public who joined us on our protest.”
The original article is available here.
