Patient Emma Metcalf with midwife Lorraine Puni
Bosses say 300 to 350 mums-to-be a year are expected to use the unit, which is now only staffed by midwives.
Click the headline or link below to read the rest of this story.
It saw 2,800 woman a year when doctors were at the site. But mums who need a doctor will now have to go to other hospitals including Heartlands in Bordesley Green.
All births were halted three months ago at Solihull over fears about staffing levels.
A consultation on the long-term future of Solihull will take place in the autumn, yet thousands has already been spent on making it into a midwife led unit.
This includes adding an extra birthing pool.
Joy Payne, head of midwifery at Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust, said: “I can imagine that the public will feel they have lost a service.
“But that is out of our control. If there is not enough medical staff to have a viable unit it would not be safe.”
She said the unit is ‘lovely’ and ‘we have tried to make it as low tech as possible’ to create a ‘homely atmosphere’.
Mrs Payne said: “The midwives are raring to go.”
And she said she expected the unit to stay open if doctor-led births did not return. Some have closed because of the low take-up from women.
She said: “I have been advised we have to have 350 births to have a viable centre.”
Mrs Payne said she expected about one in ten women to transfer to a hospital with doctors after being admitted to Solihull to give birth.
This would be 20 per cent in the first year as ‘people tend to err on the side of caution in the first year’ she said.
Click here for stories on the maternity row.
What do you think? Leave your comments below. No registration required.
Click here to get stories by email.
