Shadow Health Minister Darren Millar today made fresh calls for controversial plans to relocate long-term neonatal intensive care services for North Wales' babies to the Wirral to be scrapped.
The Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board has proposed that level three neonatal services should be transferred from Glan Clwyd and Wrexham Maelor Hospitals to Arrowe Park Hospital on the Wirral.
Mr Millar has issued fresh calls for the move to be abandoned in the wake of a letter from the lead nurse at Arrowe Park's Women and Children's Division, Linda Birch, to hospital employees in which she blasts 'deteriorating' standards and 'rude' staff.
The letter also calls into question the sustainability of baby care services at Arrowe Park saying, 'at less than 3,000 births our unit is not financially viable.'
Darren Millar AM said, "This letter provides yet further evidence standards of care at Arrowe Park Hospital falls well below those required for the treatment of babies from North Wales.
"If the lead nurse at Arrowe Park is raising serious concerns over the standards of care and viability of services being provided by patients then no-one from North Wales can have confidence that these services will be of sufficient quality and sustainability for babies from our region.
"It is now abundantly clear that the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board's plans to relocate long-term neonatal care services from North Wales to the Wirral are flawed and that they should be abandoned once and for all.
"The health board must move quickly to give a commitment to retain level three neonatal services in North Wales and invest in these for the long-term."
Notes:
Concerns have been raised in recent weeks about maternity service standards on the Wirral: