Maternity Services

This last week has been dominated by the arrival of our sixth child, Toby, last Sunday morning at Chase Farm Hospital. We greatly appreciated the fantastic care provided by the midwives at Ridgeway Birth Centre.

All of our children have been born at Chase Farm and all have been naturally unique in the challenges of child birth. It is impossible to plan for all eventualities of birth. My wife passed the criteria for giving birth at Ridgeway Birth Centre which meant that there was no indication that Toby would require the intervention of a doctor on a labour ward in addition to midwife care. However during labour it became apparent that due to potential complications if Toby was not born within the hour we would be transferred to the labour ward for intervention by a doctor. The present services at Chase Farm provide parents with the security that such a transfer would only be downstairs to the labour ward. The future reconfiguration proposals would mean an ambulance transfer to Barnet or another hospital depending on space. Midwives tell me that it has been the norm for Barnet to be full up most nights and then expectant mothers would have to be transferred elsewhere. This option is quite frankly a nightmare for mothers.

Chase Farm has the benefit of all women and children services on one site together with a larger labour ward and birth centre, both in number of beds and space, than Barnet. The Ridgeway Birth Centre was only opened in 2003 and provides an excellent service. The service is in danger of being undermined by the loss of the safety net of a labour ward on site. It does not make sense to break up Chase Farm's maternity service, fragment midwives training and jeopardise lives.

The Government national strategy, called “Putting mothers and babies first”, talks about giving choice to mothers about where to give birth but the reality in Enfield is that choice is being limited by the planned removal of the labour ward at Chase Farm. What mother would ideally choose whilst in labour to have an emergency transfer to another hospital? The project director of the reconfiguration plans accepts that ‘choice will be limited for those mothers who have been advised that there may be risks to themselves or their baby’. But life is not as straightforward as that and complications can and, as in two of our children’s birth, do arise during labour. At this crucial time choice should not be limited.

This week we relied upon Chase Farm Hospital to both help care for our new baby AND cover for any unexpected emergency. I am resolved more than ever to fight for those services to be available for future parents and children at Chase Farm.