PRESS RELEASE
27th October, 2011
Public invited to voice their objections to close Corbar Birth Centre
High Peak residents opposed to NHS Derbyshire County’s controversial plans to close Corbar Birth Centre will have the chance to voice their opposition at a series of public meetings in Buxton.
With the collection of more than 4500 signatures from people objecting to the plans to shut Cobar Birth Centre, Derbyshire PCT has decided to give local residents the opportunity to hear and discuss the case for slashing healthcare services for women and children in the area.
Save Corbar Birth Centre (SCBC), the campaign group working to save Buxton’s midwife-led unit is urging local people to attend the public meetings and make themselves heard.
“The NHS’s case for closing Corbar Birth Centre is based solely on saving costs yet how can you put a price on the safe and stress-free delivery of a new life.
“These meetings will give us, the public, the chance to make sure our local NHS accounts for its unacceptable plan to call time on Corbar. We want to question the PCT’s decision to shut the only birth centre in North Derbyshire and ask why vital ante natal, maternity and post natal services must be accessed outside the county?, said Fiona Lichfield, SCBC spokesperson.
Closing Corbar Birth Centre will result in women in the High Peak becoming dependent on health services in Cheshire and Greater Manchester. With births per midwife at Stockport’s Stepping Hill Hospital (SHH), currently running above the Royal College of Midwives recommend guidelines. This trend will only increase with the closure of Corbar Birth Centre, resulting in an additional stress for women in labour across the High Peak as well as an increased workload for midwives at SHH and Macclesfield General Hospital – the two maternity units proposed by Derbyshire PCT to replace Corbar Birth Centre’s services. In 2010 SHH was closed to new admissions on eight separate occasions.
The SCBC campaign is backed by the National Childbirth Trust and Andrew Bingham MP for High Peak, and has more than 1300 followers on its dedicated Facebook page.
The public meetings to hear and discuss the arguments for closing Corbar Birth Centre will take place at the Octagon at Pavilion Gardens in Buxton on Friday 30th September from 9.30am to 11.30am and on Monday 3rd October from 7.30pm to 9.30pm.
For further information about the campaign to Save Corbar Birth Centre email savecorbarbirthcentre@yahoo.co.uk or search for Save Corbar Birth Centre group page on Facebook.
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Notes to editors
For more information about the Save Corbar Birth Centre campaign and for interview requests, please contact Fiona Lichfield at savecorbarbirthcentre@yahoo.co.uk
