This article appears as part of the Unspun: Scottish Politics newsletter.
The crisis in maternity care in Wigtownshire exposes a truth that cuts across party lines: when safety concerns and trauma collide, political feuding must give way to collective action for the greater good.
The permanent closure of Stranraer’s maternity unit has left women in the far southwest of Scotland facing 90-mile journeys to give birth.
The risks have been made vividly clear for years now — babies delivered in cars, on farm drives, even by the roadside — stark evidence of a healthcare system stretched to its limits in one of Scotland’s most rural regions.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar’s recent pledge to demand action before an 'adverse incident' - such as a death- occurs has drawn attention to the issue in Holyrood. Yet his intervention comes after more than seven years of warnings from campaigners, doctors, and local families that the current service model is unsafe.
Amid the urgency of the situation, there is a danger that debate descends into political point-scoring rather than problem solving — and that helps no one.
This is not a Labour issue, nor a Conservative or SNP one. It is a human issue.
Every woman in Scotland should have access to safe, local maternity care — and when geography and staffing pressures make that difficult, it is the collective responsibility of all political leaders to find solutions.
READ MORE:
- The Scottish mums driving 100s of miles for maternity services
- Sarwar demands action over South Scotland maternity crisis
- NHS Dumfries & Galloway accused of ignoring maternity safety concerns
The debate over Stranraer’s maternity services reflects broader challenges faced by rural healthcare systems across the country: staff shortages, recruitment barriers, and the centralisation of services in urban hubs. In Caithness, for example, a downgrade to a maternity unit in 2016 has forced pregnant women to travel over 100 miles for five-minute appointments.
These are deep-rooted structural issues that no single government, past or present, can solve overnight. They demand sustained cooperation and honesty across party lines.
There is already broad recognition of the problem. Finlay Carson, the local Conservative MSP who has raised this issue on several occasions has called the situation a “scandal.” Labour’s new candidate for his seat, Jack McConnel, has urged joint action to pressure NHS Dumfries & Galloway's IJB to revisit its decision. SNP ministers, meanwhile, acknowledge “challenges and weaknesses” but emphasise that difficult decisions are made on clinical grounds.
These are not irreconcilable positions. In fact, they point to an opportunity: shared concern, if channelled constructively, can become shared purpose.
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But that opportunity risks being lost amid accusations of electioneering and political one-upmanship.
Mr Carson accused Labour of exploiting the issue for campaign gain. The timing of Labour's intervention may raise eyebrows when we are so close to a Scottish election (why now and not seven years ago?) but such exchanges only distract from the underlying crisis — and from the voices of the women living it. Moreover, Labour must also prove it is not here for political campaigning but for the women suffering at the hands of a broken healthcare system. Sadly, this issue will likely take more than seven months to fix and they, like all other politicians, must prove they are here for the long run.
Maternity safety is one of those rare policy areas where unity can directly save lives.
The closure of a maternity unit in Stranraer in 2018 was initially meant to be temporary, yet seven years later, women are still travelling long distances for care. The local health board insists the current model is safe, but campaigners, local clinicians, and now the Patient Safety Commissioner have all pointed to “gaps in care.”
When women are giving birth in lay-bys along the A75 — described by one retired GP as “something out of the Middle Ages” — it should trigger more than sympathy; it should trigger collaboration.
Cross-party pressure on NHS Dumfries & Galloway and the Scottish Government could bring about real change: a review of the rejected midwife-led unit proposal, investment in recruitment and retention in rural areas, and stronger emergency protocols for long-distance transfers. None of these solutions require partisan posturing — they require shared political will.
As the days become darker and the weather worsens, for soon-to-be mothers in the area, there is no time quite like the present to take action.
