Travel to deliver is the TDHB recommendation

The Stratford maternity unit is unlikely to re-open its doors with the district health board recommendation being to keep the doors closed, focusing instead on strengthening the service provision in Hawera and New Plymouth.
The recommendation, made to the board which will meet on Thursday to decide the fate of the unit, has left Stratford mother, Jess Brocas, who petitioned to see the unit re-open, feeling "totally abandoned".
The unit temporarily closed in November last year when the contracted provider, Maternity Services Limited, informed the TDHB that it was unable to maintain staffing levels.
Stratford and rural parents called for the unit to be re-opened and have been vocal in their support of the need for Stratford to have a maternity unit.
In his report to the board, chief executive Tony Foulkes said that the TDHB itself taking over the provision of the service would run the risk of "jeopardising the sustainability of our other maternity services which serve the vast majority (approx. 95%) of Taranaki's mothers and their babies".
Jess believes the decision comes down to money, "once again, the rural community is being disadvantaged and money redirected to our urban neighbours". Pointing out the recommendation in the report for the promotion of low risk births to go to Hawera Hospital Primary Maternity Unit or Home Births for Stratford and South Taranaki women, she says this will see families having to travel further at an already stressful time. "Then, if a birth doesn't go according to plan and a transfer To Base Hospital is needed, patients are further away than if they had been at a maternity unit in Stratford, it doesn't make sense to take the most central town in the region out of the equation, surely Stratford is ideally placed, being between Hawera and New Plymouth, for a birthing unit."
The recommendation will be considered, and a decision made, when the Taranaki District Health Board meets this Thursday in the committee room at Base hospital at 2.30pm.