No babies at Sandwell hospital
No babies will be born at Sandwell Hospital under plans for a radical shake-up of maternity services, it has emerged.
Three options for the future of midwifery are currently out to public consultation with two proposing to move all births to City Hospital in Birmingham, almost four miles away.
The third option, a midwifery-led birthing unit with no consultants, would see a centre opened somewhere in Sandwell but not at the West Bromwich hospital.
Sandwell General Hospital is to be downgraded, with most of its buildings sold off and demolished, when a new £484 million "super hospital" is opened in Smethwick.
There have been three damning reports into outdated practices and the high number of Caesarean sections at Sandwell Hospital.
A midwife at Sandwell Hospital, who did not want to be named, said today she was concerned for patients.
She said: "How the ambulance service is going to cope I do not know. They will have to take mothers further to City Hospital or to Smethwick.
"There are parents who want their babies born at Sandwell but this is a done deal. They say they are consulting people but I think there are still plenty of patients in Sandwell who would be shocked to know that no babies would be born at Sandwell Hospital."
Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust spokeswoman Jess-amy Kinghorn said: "One of the options is a midwifery-led birthing unit somewhere in Sandwell. There is no preferred option.
"We would encourage home births for women who are suitable and the midwifery-led unit would be for low risk births only."
