You know what we need? We need a group dedicated to reminding people that access to maternity services are incomplete and threatened. Hey, if it works for abortion…
Thousands of women are having to give birth outside maternity wards because of a lack of midwives and hospital beds.
The lives of mothers and babies are being put at risk as births in locations ranging from lifts to toilets – even a caravan – went up 15 per cent last year to almost 4,000.
Health chiefs admit a lack of maternity beds is partly to blame for the crisis, with hundreds of women in labour being turned away from hospitals because they are full.
There will always be “born-in-the-taxi-on-the-way-over” cases, because I’m told that sometimes babies make their appearance quite suddenly. But golly, 4,000 a year in Britain is A LOT.
Tory health spokesman Andrew Lansley, who obtained the figures, said Labour had cut maternity beds by 2,340, or 22 per cent, since 1997. At the same time birth rates have been rising sharply – up 20 per cent in some areas.
Mr Lansley said: ‘New mothers should not be being put through the trauma of having to give birth in such inappropriate places.
Indeed.
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