Twenty Days to Craigavon
Twenty days.
That is how long Newry had between the vote and the last births at Daisy Hill.
On Tuesday, 3 November, the Southern Trust Board met at Monaghan Row. Ten people had asked to speak. They spoke. The decision was confirmed shortly afterwards.
From Monday 23 November, births and inpatient maternity care will move to Craigavon Area Hospital.
Look at the numbers the Trust gave.
The unit needs eight substantive consultant obstetricians. By the end of this month it will have two, plus three locums.
Craigavon is expected to take about 1,700 extra births. The Trust says it is ready.
There is no date for when births will come back to Daisy Hill.
The Trust's chief executive, Steve Spoerry, called it "a sad day." He apologised to the community. He said there was no other alternative, and that the Trust "cannot continue to safely provide inpatient maternity care at both hospitals."
We should take him at his word that he does not want this. We should also look at what the word "temporary" is being asked to carry.
Temporary, with no end date.
Temporary, while the recruitment that has already failed carries on.
Newry and Armagh MP Dáire Hughes asked the Board for "iron clad" commitments that "temporary is temporary." Justin McNulty MLA pointed out that, going by the Trust's own published FAQs, the travel-time analysis, the equality and rural-needs screening, and the extra capacity at Craigavon were still listed as being in development.
Now put one woman beside those numbers.
She is pregnant. According to Newry Now, she lives about 15 minutes from Daisy Hill and about 45 minutes from Craigavon. The paper reports that she had not been told where she will give birth, and that the move has caused her great stress and anxiety about the risk to herself and her baby on that road.
At about four o'clock on Tuesday, her lawyers lodged judicial review papers at the High Court, asking that the change be delayed.
She did not organise a rally. She did not write a policy paper. She did the one thing left open to her. She asked a judge to look again.
Two weeks ago we told the story of Sinéad Cole, whose son Thomas was born at 26 weeks in her bathroom near Newry. The paramedics chose Daisy Hill over the drive to Craigavon. She said: "Our son wouldn't have survived the journey to Craigavon."
From 23 November, the Trust plans for midwife phone triage and ambulance crews to direct women to Craigavon "or elsewhere as appropriate." That will be planned for. Babies do not always arrive on plan.
None of this is a debate about whether life matters. Everyone in that room said it does. The question is whether a mother's minutes on the road are counted as carefully as the consultant rota.
So here is the plain question for anyone with power over this: if births come back to Daisy Hill, what will have changed, and by when?
Until there is an answer, "temporary" is not a promise. It is just a word.
And somewhere between Newry and Craigavon, a baby who cannot speak yet is already depending on how quickly we find one.
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