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Call for faster action on Dr Gray’s maternity service improvements

An Elgin community councillor is calling for faster action on reinstating maternity services at Dr Gray's Hospital.
An Elgin community councillor is calling for faster action on reinstating maternity services at Dr Gray's Hospital.

An Elgin community councillor is calling on colleagues across Moray to back a campaign to restore maternity services at Dr Gray’s Hospital.

Promises have been made by NHS Grampian to reintroduce a consultant-led obstetrics unit at the hospital.

However, it could take as long as nine years for that to happen.

Neil Alexander, who is a new member of Elgin Community Council, believes that time scale isn’t good enough.

He is proposing to lobby Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care Hamza Yousaf for faster action.

Mr Alexander will ask colleagues to sign a letter to Mr Yousaf, and for them to support the Keep Mum campaign group which is fighting to have maternity services restored at Dr Gray’s.

Elgin community councillor Neil Alexander.

The move has already received unanimous backing from Elgin Community Council. It will go before members of the Joint Community Councils of Moray (JCC) at a meeting on August 11.

Mr Alexander is hopeful of gaining approval for his proposal from the JCC.

He said: “There is wide support for the Keep Mum campaign.

“The suggestion that NHS Grampian take nine years to restore a consultant-led service is a disaster.

“People are having to travel to Inverness or Aberdeen and it’s not acceptable.

“Elgin is growing and that’s good to see, but without this essential service it’s not a great situation to be in.”

‘Not acceptable’

The maternity unit at Dr Gray’s was downgraded in 2018.

Around 75% of Moray women have their babies in Aberdeen, which is a 90-minute drive from Elgin.

Others go to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness that takes around an hour to get to by road.

In the last six months two mothers have given birth at the side of the road on their way to Aberdeen.

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