The following is a copy of a letter sent to Alison Guy, Chief Executive, Scarborough and North East Yorkshire Healthcare NHS Trust.

I WOULD like to add my voice to the many who have already expressed concern about the future of the maternity unit in Malton Hospital. My own experience of giving birth to my third son in Malton Hospital was important to me for a number of reasons.

Firstly, as we live in Malton, it took us only a few minutes to reach the unit when the time was right - I cannot imagine having had to travel over 20 miles along the A64 (especially through summer traffic) while having contractions every few minutes. Secondly, once at the hospital, the friendly, informal atmosphere in the unit was very important to us, and allowed us to keep a feeling of control over everything that was going on.

My individual wishes about the birth were respected and followed to the letter, and the support from both my GP (Dr Diggory) and the midwives was excellent. After the birth it was important that family and friends could pop in and out for short periods to see us, without the additional stress of long journeys and parking problems. Finally, I was able to choose how long I stayed in the unit, without any pressure to make room for the next mother-to-be. This meant that I could recover properly from the birth, start to get to know my new baby and iron out any feeding problems before having to go back to caring for my two other small children.

While I accept that some pregnancies may be more complicated, and that some women will prefer to be in a more high-tech environment, it is a fact that the majority of labours are trouble-free and should require little intervention. Childbirth is a natural event, not an illness, and as such should be kept as simple and as low-key as possible.

What a mother wants more than anything is a quiet, accepting, private place, as near as possible to her home, with as little outside intervention as possible, so that she can concentrate fully on what she has to do. It is vital that all those who feel they want this are able to choose it. If Malton is closed, the choice will no longer be there, and women from Ryedale area will have to travel needlessly to Scarborough or York to have their babies in an environment which is undoubtedly far more hurried and impersonal and where there are also the additional risks of infection and unnecessary intervention.

I would urge you to think long and hard about this proposal, as, once lost, it will be very hard to reinstate the unit. Now that consultation with patients has been accepted as central to the planning of health services, the views of those who have first-hand experience of local services must be taken very seriously.

When so many NHS services are criticised, the trust should surely be celebrating the popularity of the unit at Malton and seeking to learn lessons from it which can be applied to other local health services.

I look forward to hearing your response and would be grateful for information on any meeting or consultations you are planning on this issue.

PHILIPPA HARE

Malton

Updated: 10:52 Wednesday, February 19, 2003