Louise Nousratpour, Equalities Reporter
Wednesday November 17, 2010
The Morning Star
The coalition government has reneged on its pre-election pledge to recruit thousands more midwives despite maternity services across England being at a "cracking point," health workers warned today.
The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) said that, despite repeated requests, Prime Minister David Cameron, his deputy Nick Clegg and Health Secretary Andrew Lansley had all failed to honour their commitment to hiring 3,000 extra midwives.
"The silence from the government is deafening," RCM's general secretary Cathy Warwick told delegates at its annual conference in Manchester.
She pointed to a recent RCM report which showed that maternity units face budget cuts and redundancies despite dealing with a high birth rate and more complex deliveries.
The birthrate has risen by 19 per cent over the past decade but the number of midwives has increased by just 12.1 per cent.
Ms Warwick called for least 3,500 extra midwives, adding: "I fear for the future of maternity services, that the quality of care will fall and that safety could be compromised.
"I think it's getting to the point where it really is at cracking point."
Unison general secretary Dave Prentis said it was "a disgrace" that the lives of mothers and babies were being compromised in this way.
He warned that the situation could get worse as the NHS scrambled to make so-called efficiency savings of £20 billion through hiring freezes and redundancies.
Despite stark evidence of a shortage of midwives, a Conservative Party spokesman said: "The commitment to 3,000 midwives made in opposition ... was not in the coalition agreement because predictions now suggest the birth rate will be stable over the next few years."
louise@peoples-press.com
No comments:
Post a Comment