 The board is reviewing maternity services |
The closure of the Queen Mother's Maternity Hospital in Glasgow has been approved at a meeting of the city's health board. But the board has also agreed to put the planned closure out to a three-month consultation following warnings from medical staff that the move could cost lives and objections from the public.
An expert panel had recommended the hospital be shut as part of a reorganisation of maternity services across the city.
Greater Glasgow NHS Board officials believe that there is one maternity hospital too many in Glasgow.
This is due in part to the falling birth rate and the cost of maintaining centres of excellence.
The issue was examined by an expert panel who recommended the closure of the Queen Mother's.
Concerns 'ignored'
This would concentrate maternity services at the Princess Royal and the Southern General.
The panel also suggested the board consider the longer term relocation of the Royal Sick Children's Hospital at Yorkhill - which shares a site with the Queen Mother's.
Paediatric surgeons say clinical concerns are being ignored and that young lives will be lost if the plan goes ahead.
They said the closure would lead to a drop in standards of care of newborn babies in the city and ruin the current "integrated" service on the site. Professor Carl Davies from Yorkhill said: "Although we have an excellent transport system they will be asked to transfer babies that up to now have been delivered on site and have not been exposed.
"No matter how good the transport service is there will be babies whose lives will be lost."
Surgeons have also complained that the panel based its recommendations on inaccurate information and "ignored" their advice.
Campaigners warn any such move creates an over-centralised maternity service and a problem for mothers right across the West of Scotland.
Clinical community
However, the Greater Glasgow NHS Board said resources were being stretched.
Dr Brian Cowan said: "The clinical community in Glasgow are virtually unanimous in believing that we have got to get from three to two.
"It is not a decision we can back away from just now, it is not a decision we can delay.
"It may be a difficult decision... but it is a decision we have to make."
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It may be a difficult decision... but it is a decision we have to make 
