Health bosses in Moray have warned that recruitment efforts remain “challenging” at the region’s largest hospital.
Maternity services at Dr Gray’s were downgraded in July 2018 after a shortage of junior doctors made the department unable to operate at previous levels.
For the last 18 months NHS Grampian has been attempting to develop a new staffing model to ease dependency on the seasonal rotation of medics.
Next week the Scottish Government’s health minister Jeane Freeman is due to visit the hospital to inspect progress being made.
However, yesterday Pam Dudek, the health board’s executive lead for Moray, revealed that attracting the right staff to the Elgin unit remains a problem.
She said: “The main delay in moving forward to this local solution is the availability of a sufficient specialist workforce.
“Recently updated modern guidelines as well as comparative work have identified that the size of this multi-professional specialist team is higher than previously appreciated.
“It is also challenging to attract specialist staff into smaller units and we have moved to looking at appointments across the region where staff can move to support Moray women as services develop.”
Mrs Dudek explained that “almost all” antenatal care for Moray families continued to be done locally with “higher risk” pregnancies needing to travel to Aberdeen for delivery.
Children’s services at Dr Gray’s were downgraded at the same time as the maternity unit due to similar issues with junior doctors.
However, attempts to restore that ward have proved more successful with a new staffing model already identified to restore stays of up to 24 hours to Elgin.
This week NHS Grampian confirmed £1.7million would be invested in the hospital to improve birthing facilities and pay for maintenance on other wards.
Moray MSP Richard Lochhead said: “This spending will improve facilities in a number of areas and services for patients and staff, and is another step forward for Dr Gray’s following the recent approval of the business case for an MRI scanner for the hospital.
“Significant challenges do remain, however, and there is still lots more to do to around recruitment.”
Moray MP Douglas Ross added: “It’s all very well adding a new birthing room and facilities for the labour suite, but since we still don’t have a full maternity service up and running, that must remain the top priority.”
