Meeting of the Parliament 22 December 2022
I pass on my good wishes for the festive season, and I recognise the Presiding Officer’s generosity at this festive time in regard to my contribution.
I whole-heartedly sympathise with my colleague Douglas Ross when it comes to the problems that he faces around the serious lack of maternity services at Dr Gray’s hospital in Elgin. Although my speech is not specifically about Dr Gray’s, I believe that—with your indulgence, Presiding Officer—it will highlight that that is the case not just in Moray but in other rural areas where trust in health boards is at rock bottom.
I am sure that it will be of little comfort to Douglas Ross to know that he is not alone in witnessing a serious erosion of health services. In Galloway and West Dumfries, we are experiencing a similar crisis that needs to be rectified as a matter of urgency. There has been much talk in the debate about option 4 and option 6 but, in Galloway, we have no option. Mothers-to-be in Wigtownshire are facing the daunting prospect of a 70-mile trip to Dumfries and Galloway royal infirmary—a journey that can often take two hours—in order to give birth. I speak from experience. My wife had to stay in DGRI for a period prior to giving birth because a condition that she had meant that there was too much risk in her possibly taking an hour or more to get to hospital when labour started.
There is a midwife-led community maternity unit in Stranraer that, incredibly, was once the eighth busiest in Scotland but, bizarrely, it is currently closed. What makes the situation all the more galling is the fact that there are four midwives who live in the immediate area but who have to travel to Dumfries instead of being employed locally in the unit.
An independently reviewed formula is used to identify funding for health boards, but we have to ask whether it is fit for purpose when it comes to areas such as Moray and Galloway. It is clearly unacceptable that there are glaring health inequalities, with pregnant women in my constituency having to make that two-hour journey by car or ambulance. There have been numerous instances of women giving birth in lay-bys along the A75, including as recently as last month.
In November, the Minister for Public Health, Women’s Health and Sport, Maree Todd, visited the unit in Stranraer to see for herself the facilities that were on offer but, sadly, the unit remains closed. The minister was involved in discussions about a woman who had tragically suffered a miscarriage but still had to make the long journey from Stranraer to Dumfries. That lady bravely told of her heart-rending experience, which was exacerbated by the fact that she could not go to her local maternity unit in Stranraer. In this day and age, it should not be allowed that women have to face such untold stress and anxiety while about to give birth. Giving birth should be a joyful and memorable experience, but that has been denied to so many women in Wigtownshire.
It is positive that the cabinet secretary has reiterated that not just maternity services but all health services should be provided as close to home as possible, but I sincerely hope that the Government sticks to that commitment and puts sufficient pressure on NHS Dumfries and Galloway to deliver on the provision of maternity services in Stranraer.
Of course, it is not just maternity services that have been affected. Other health services that were previously delivered in the likes of our cottage hospitals have been largely paused since the outbreak of the pandemic. NHS Dumfries and Galloway has refused to instigate a full return of the health services that were previously provided in Castle Douglas, Kirkcudbright, Newton Stewart and Moffat, which is not in my constituency. The strength of local feeling on the importance of delivering a range of health services, such as palliative care and step-down care, in our cottage hospitals has been enormous, so it is abundantly clear that people need to be cared for as close to home as possible, rather than having to undertake unreasonably long journeys.
It is important that the Scottish Government and health boards listen to the people who matter—the public—everywhere, in rural and urban areas. They deserve to have, and demand, maternity and other health services on their doorstep, where they live.