Women will be able to give birth again at Shrewsbury maternity unit
After an eight-week delay, women will again be able to give birth at Shrewsbury's midwife-led unit - but they will have to go elsewhere for postnatal care.
The Royal Shrewsbury Hospital's midwife-led unit closed for births and inpatient care on December 11 after snow damaged its roof.
The unit remained open to outpatient services including day attendees, hearing screening and the registrar.
But since the repair work began last month, further issues with damage to the roof were discovered, so the maternity services will now be in a temporary home of Ward 20, in the Copthorne building, as work to repair the maternity unit's snow damaged roof continues.
On Monday services including Early Pregnancy Assessment Service (EPAS) and antenatal services, will be temporarily moved to the currently vacant Ward 20.
The relocation means that women will again be able to give birth at the MLU from Tuesday.
Sarah Jamieson, head of midwifery at The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH), which runs the MLU, said: “When it became clear that we would need to temporarily relocate our service to allow further repair work, we sought to identify an area that would allow us to restore the birthing option for our mums-to-be.
“Unfortunately, the nature of the area we are moving into means we are unable to offer postnatal beds until the repair work is completed.
“I would like to say a big thank you to our midwifery teams and our colleagues from our Estates department for making this possible.
“I would also like to reiterate my thanks to the women using our service while these vital repairs are carried out.”
The relocation of the MLU will take place in two phases on Monday. Birthing services will be available for women from Tuesday morning.
