Mum backs Save Our Services campaign

An emotional Andrea Murray, 38, described how what initially seemed to be a straightforward birth suddenly hit complications, forcing doctors to perform an emergency caesarean section.

It was so quick she had to have a general anaesthetic because, due to her baby being in distress, they could not afford to wait the 15 or so minutes it would take for a spinal injection to take effect.

Now the proud mum of Benjamin, she and husband Andrew, 37, of Workington, say their story is proof that lives would be put at risk if women in west Cumbria were left 40 miles from a consultant.

The Government’s Success Regime has recommended the 24/7 consultant-led unit is removed from West Cumberland Hospital.

Instead specialists would be on site in daytime hours only to provide antenatal and postnatal care.

All women with pregnancies classed as higher risk would have to travel to Carlisle to give birth, while lower risk women using the midwife-led Whitehaven unit would face a 40-mile trip in an ambulance if anything went wrong during labour.

A senior maternity consultant – who described the distance as “not that far” – has insisted nobody will be put at risk.

He said only low risk births take place in Whitehaven and women were transferred earlier if problems looked likely.

But Andrea said low risk is never ‘no risk’ and, as she discovered, the situation can change within minutes.

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In Andrea’s case, she was being monitored carefully as she has type one diabetes and had been in labour for 48 hours. Bosses have therefore suggested she would have had to go to Carlisle or been transferred earlier if there had not been consultants in the west.

However she believes the speed at which her situation changed and the urgency of her caesarean shows that living 40 miles or more from a consultant will put babies and mothers at risk.

Andrea, of Cavendish Street, said they had been monitoring her baby’s heart rate at regular intervals for days and it was fine.

Doctors were so happy she was even allowed to go home during early labour. “I went back at 4am because I was in serious pain with proper contractions.

“The drive to the hospital just from Workington was horrible. I remember thinking I wouldn’t want to do the journey up to Carlisle with contractions like this,” explained Andrea.

Her labour continued for almost another 24 hours.

“It was going fine, he was just taking a long time to come out. By 2.45am the next morning I was fully dilated, that’s when the midwife said the ECG looked a bit funny. She went to get a consultant, who decided to do a blood test on the baby. That was sent to the lab and came back really quickly.

“They just said we have to get this baby out. They said the baby was distressed and they would have to give me a general anaesthetic. I didn’t want that but they said a spinal block would take 15 to 20 minutes, which could be too long,” she added.

Benjamin was born by emergency caesarean at 3.59am on August 10, weighing 8lb 5oz. He needed some initial help to start breathing but other than that was fine, and did not need special care.

But Andrea and Andrew feel they were lucky.

“Afterwards I just thought they would never have got me to Carlisle within that time frame. The outcome could have been very different,” she said.

“The fact that they said I couldn’t have the spinal block because it would take too long, I think that will stick in my head forever. When it suddenly went from being fine to being an emergency there wasn’t time to even get me into a dedicated ambulance.”

Andrea and Andrew are backing the Save Our Services campaign because they fear anything less than a 24-hour consultant-led unit will put women and babies at risk.

They said if they decide to have more children they would have to seriously consider moving elsewhere if the existing services were not available at West Cumberland Hospital.