We will have to fight all over again for our hospital

This letter first appeared in the Greenock Telegraph on 19th August 2016

Sir,

The Health Board have now confirmed that they are proposing to close birthing facilities at Inverclyde Royal Hospital. In short, this means that unless you are giving birth at home you won’t be able to have your baby in Inverclyde.

This represents a threat on two fronts. First, women in Inverclyde will no longer have the choice to have their baby close to home and their family and friends that has been open to all other recent generations of Inverclyde women. Second, it is yet another reduction in the services provided at the IRH which will likely provide an argument in years to come that the hospital is unsustainable. At the very least, the reduction in services will make it less likely that the hospital will find it easy to attract staff who need to keep their skills up to date.

If this closure goes ahead, in the course of 22 years — less than a generation — Greenock will have gone from having a dedicated maternity hospital to no maternity provision. Surely few other places have seen such a decline in provision as we have? At this rate, how long before the Royal Alexandra also suffers the same fate and all specialised hospital services for anyone in Inverclyde or Renfrewshire will only be found in Glasgow?

In previous years, when we have faced closures, our local Labour MPs and MSPs have spoken out, even when it was a Labour led Government that was proposing changes. They did this despite what the leaders of their parties thought. Now Inverclyde has an SNP MP and MSP. I want to see them do the same. Their job isn’t to keep their party leaders happy, it’s to represent people in this area.

During the Scottish elections Stuart McMillan promised to continue to defend these services. The very fact that the proposal has been made shows he has already failed to keep Inverclyde Royal free from proposals for cuts. Now he must use his influence with the First Minister, Health Minister and party colleagues to ensure there is no reduction in services at Inverclyde and the backlog of repairs is remedied. I noticed in his column in Monday’s Telegraph that he had the Minister for Public Health in Greenock recently. Perhaps he would like to begin by knocking on her door?

At the election, Labour guaranteed that local services would be protected with a Labour Government. For that pledge, we were attacked by the SNP. Now the election is over, they’re finally being honest about their plan for hospital closures. The first campaign I ever took part in as a teenager was against the downgrading of the maternity services at IRH. I really hoped I wouldn’t have to do it again, but it seems we are going to need to fight all over again for our local hospital.

Martin McCluskey
Former Labour Scottish Parliament Candidate