local rural midwife led nhs birth centre - facing closure :(

[vasillisa]

anyone had any experience in fighting off such dastardly deeds? our maternity centre is an asset to the community and everyone thinks its brilliant. typical that the pct wants to close it and make us all go 45 mins/20 miles to the nearest big hospital!

Sorry no personal experience of this but I know that maternity services are being 'restructured' all over England. 3 local hospitals (one of which is big city hosp) near me are closing mat units it doesn't make sense to me as the remaining hospitals new mat unit will only have 10 more post natal beds; I can't see how the maths works out on that.

Good luck anyway, the campaigning around here seemed to fall on deaf ears but people did try hard & may be good contacts for you, here is a link for their campaign website.

Haven't got any experience of this sorry but have you tried the NCT? They have experience of campaigning against Birth Centre closures.

Just remembered, when the PCT were trying to disband our Homebirth Team (as obviously Homebirths are so much more expensive than a hospital birth) on funding grounds it was the local LLL who managed to stop it so it might be worth getting in touch with your local branch.

This is so depressing. Because obviously straightforward, unmedicated births are such a drain on funding and resources...

Contact AIMS. Wonderful people.

www.aims.org.uk

They campaign for exactly this sort of thing. And recently I read an article in which AIMS was asking for the public to contact them if they knew of any threatened closures locally.

Good luck!