A PETITION has been launched in a bid to keep the maternity unit at Ludlow Hospital open through the night.

It is part of a bid to get health chiefs to think again about a proposal to turn it into an ‘on demand’ birthing unit.

But health chiefs say that the move will still enable women from the Ludlow area to have their babies and other care close to home.

Faced with the need to save millions of pounds NHS chiefs have decided that the maternity unit at Ludlow Hospital will be changed to a ‘birthing centre.’

Sarah Jamison, head of midwifery at the Shropshire and Telford NHS Trust, says that the change is a more sensible use of resources and will mean that pregnant women continue to receive the same level of care as before.

“Birthing centres maintain the full range of services offered by midwife-led units but do not remain open overnight; instead operating through an on-call system,” said Sarah Jamison.

“Mums-to-be requiring intrapartum care would meet their midwife at the unit and would then be supported through labour and with their immediate post-natal care before being discharged home when it was considered safe for them to do so.

“This is similar to the model used very successfully in Powys.”

The petition calls upon the maternity unit to be kept open 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week.

It follows a march through Ludlow at the beginning of December in defence of the maternity unit.