An island mother is to lodge a complaint after a mainland hospital discharged her and her newborn baby in the middle of the night.
With no ferry home to Mull until morning Stacey Inglis and baby Eilidh took refuge in a B&B after Oban hospital refused to put them up overnight.
When Ms Inglis, 29, from Tobermory, experienced complications with the birth of her second child, on June 5, a helicopter was called in case she had to be airlifted to another hospital. But two-and-a-half hours after delivering a 9lb 6oz girl she was discharged from Oban's Lorn and Islands District General Hospital, at half-past midnight – although the next ferry to Mull was not till 7.45am.
Ms Inglis said: "I had a bath, they checked the baby out and they said you are ready to go. I asked why we couldn't stay and one of the midwives said they didn't have the beds. It was a bit like Mary and Joseph – there was no room at the inn."
Ms Inglis had become concerned earlier that night when another midwife told her about the hospital's discharge procedure. She said: "The midwife asked me how I was going to feed the baby. I said, I am going to breastfeed in hospital and then bottle-feed and she said – you won't be in hospital long, there is a six-hour window where you need to be discharged after the labour. That was never explained to us before. I was really stressed throughout the labour. I thought, what are we going to do? Where are we going to go?"
Ms Inglis's partner, Michael Wright, 29, had hurried from their home to be with her, as she faced initial complications with the birth. She said: "My partner had rushed over to Oban on the last ferry. I explained we didn't have a car seat, or bed, for the baby. The midwives were running around trying to find a car seat, but we didn't get one, and they lent us a plastic bed and the baby had to sleep in that at the B&B."
Ishbell Strachan, who runs Sgeir Mhaol B&B, in Soroba Road, Oban, said: "I was quite shocked when she came back with a newborn baby, but I was happy to have her here. She came back here with the baby because there was nowhere else for her to go."
Midwife services were withdrawn from Mull two years ago and Ms Inglis said island mothers-to-be are now told to book into a B&B for the fortnight prior to their due date and claim the cost from the NHS. She said: "We are putting in a complaint because we think there should be something done to help other island mothers."
Councillor Mary-Jean Devon, from Tobermory, said: "It really worries me that they are taking services off the island. They are giving us all these assurances that it will be better, but it is not."
Derek Leslie, NHS Highland's director of operations, Argyll and Bute Community Health Partnership, said: "We are disappointed and concerned when patients feel the treatment and services provided have fallen short of the standards they are entitled to expect and would encourage the patient concerned to contact us so we can properly examine and establish the circumstances and her concerns."
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