Mother-of-six joins fight to keep maternity services for Dales

Amanda Owen, who lives on a remote Swaledale farm, was among the speakers at a rally to save the maternity services at Northallerton’s Friarage Hospital which saw thousands march through the town led by local MP and Foreign Secretary William Hague.

She told the Yorkshire Post afterwards that plans to move the unit to Middlesbrough would put people off wanting to live in parts of the Dales. “We are going to end up as an area where people want to come on holiday to but where it no longer makes sense to live her because we haven’t got these vital services.”

The NHS are consulting on plans to downgrade the hospital’s maternity and paediatric services which could mean mothers to be in parts of the Yorkshire Dales facing journeys of up to 50 miles to the James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough.

The plans have been drawn up because of concerns about being able to deliver children’s services at a small hospital which often has no children on its ward overnight. A consultation document recommends the service would improve if it was no longer 24 hour but this would mean it could no longer deliver higher risk births as 24 hour medical cover would not be available on site.

Speaking at the rally on Saturday Mr Hague warned NHS bosses that these difficulties should be “overcome not surrendered to.” “This hospital really matters to local people and it clearly matters enough to you to come out and express your support. We all want to see such exceptional level of care continue at the Friarage. You and your children are entitled to nothing less.

“It is for precisely that reason that I am calling on the South Tees Trust to do two things. First they should produce a positive vision of the future of Friarage Hospital.

“This does not just mean a short piece of paper or a few words. We mean a detailed and comprehensive proposal that people can stud, that spells out the Trust’s plans for future services. This document would go a long way to help alleviate fears that this vitally important resource for thousands of people will not remain into the future .

“Second I am calling on the Trust and the (Hambleton, Richmondshire and Whitby) Clinical Commissioning Group to do everything they can to ensure that the Friarage retains a consultant-led maternity unit.”

Mrs Owen, who has starred on The Dales TV show said: “I spoke at the rally to give a mother’s side of the story. I have had four children outside of hospital. My first child was a home birth which did not go to plan and we got by by the skin of our teeth because we had the Friarage.

“I wish I could get one of the suits to come out here and see what it is like. Someone in an office can draw a circle and say these people all live within 40 miles of this hospital but it is not the mileage that is the problem, it is the time it takes it takes on these roads.

“You have to cross a ford to get to us and on one occasion the ambulance could not get through – I had to go across in a Land Rover.”

Coun John Blackie, leader of Richmondshire Council said: “The rally on Saturday demonstrated the depth and breadth of feeling in the community the wonderful Friarage serves. It has to mark a watershed – that the concerns of thousands of people cannot be overlooked.”