Health bosses in Moray say they have faced a never-ending series of battles to restore the region’s largest hospital to full strength – but last night claimed the situation is improving.
Yesterday marked one year since both maternity and children’s services at Dr Gray’s Hospital were downgraded after a staffing crisis made it impossible to continue them.
NHS Grampian management have pledged to bring back the full range of care to the Elgin unit, and management is drawing up a 10-year vision to show how they will be sustained in the future.
But campaign group Keep Mum fear that, without the intervention of the Scottish Government a year ago, little would have changed at the hospital since the downgrade amid “mixed reports” of experiences from families and concerns about a lack of support for staff.
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Recent stories from mothers have told of similar staff shortages in Aberdeen, but also of the dedication of midwives in Elgin towards supporting new parents.
Initial estimates from the NHS expected the maternity and children’s ward to be back to full strength a year on from the downgrade.
Pam Gowans, the health board’s executive lead for Dr Gray’s, explained yesterday that the date has been pushed back to spring next year due to the whole structure of the Elgin hospital having to be redesigned.
She said: “What we have done traditionally will not sustain us in the future. These services don’t sit in isolation at the hospital though, we have to look at everything else that runs to support them.
“As with anything transformational, we’re trying things that haven’t been tried before. New things don’t always happen the way you want them to though and we are continually facing issues. When we fix one then another thing happens, it’s a bit like a game of pop-up.”
She added: “The only criticism that could be levelled at us is that we should have started this earlier, but that’s only because we were trying so hard to make things work as they were.”
Last month there were 23 babies born at Dr Gray’s. In June 2018, which was the last full month before the downgrade, there were 79 births in Elgin.
Measures enacted to improve the total from zero in August last year have included the restoration of elective caesarean sections and the reopening of the special care unit.
The NHS aims to develop a new team of advanced nurses to work across the hospital to reduce the reliance on junior doctors, which sparked the initial staffing concerns.
However, Keep Mum still feel it is “unacceptable” for pregnant women to continue to be transferred to Aberdeen and Inverness in the short-term.
Member Kirsty Watson called for recruitment efforts to begin quickly.