Thousands Walked So a Woman Wouldn't Have to Drive
It was a Sunday afternoon in Newry. Half past two, Marcus Square, Hill Street.
The night before, a storm had come through.
Still they came. Prams. Grandparents. Nurses off shift. Fathers with small children on their shoulders. Thousands of them, according to the people who were there.
They came because of a plan.
The Southern Trust wants to suspend inpatient maternity services at Daisy Hill Hospital and send women to Craigavon to give birth. The Trust says it has tried and failed to recruit consultant obstetricians for the hospital.
That is the reason given. Now look at the distance.
Councillor Laura Devlin asked people to think about a woman in Kilkeel. "Daisy Hill is around half an hour away," she said. "If inpatient maternity services are not available there, that same woman could be facing a journey of an hour or more to Craigavon."
An hour or more. In labour. On country roads.
Marc Mac Seáin of People Before Profit put it plainly at the rally. "Families can't be expected to make journeys of 1 & 1/2 hours+ safely up the country roads to Craigavon," he said, "especially in dangerous storm conditions like last night."
This is not the first thing Daisy Hill has lost. Stroke services went, and so did emergency general surgery. Now people in Newry fear that A&E could be next.
Earlier this month, Newry, Mourne and Down District Council voted unanimously to protect the maternity unit. Every councillor agreed. The motion said women "should not face unequal access to maternity care because of where they live."
That is a whole council, and a whole square full of people.
Francis Gallagher chairs the SOS Daisy Hill Committee. "This rally is about the future of maternity services at Daisy Hill Hospital," he said, "and the right of our community to have its concerns heard and taken seriously."
He was careful, and fair. "We recognise the pressures facing our health service," he said, "but decisions of this importance must be supported by clear evidence and must fully consider the impact on the people who depend on these services."
On Tuesday, he and the Daisy Hill FutureWays Group meet Health Minister Robbie Butler at Stormont.
They will bring numbers. They will bring maps. But behind every number there is a woman who feels the first pain at two in the morning and does the sum in her head: how far, how long, how dark the road.
And behind her there is someone smaller. A baby who has no say in where the nearest delivery room is. A baby who only needs the people deciding to remember that minutes matter.
So here is the question for whoever sits across the table on Tuesday.
If it were your daughter in the passenger seat, would you call an extra hour "temporary"?
Thousands walked through Newry on Sunday so that a woman in Kilkeel wouldn't have to make that drive.
The least we can do is listen to them.
And to the one who cannot speak yet, but is already on the way.
Sources:
Irish News on the rally (25 Oct)
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