Southern Trust says Daisy Hill births move 'highly probable' as minister says nothing final

The Southern Health and Social Care Trust has confirmed it is still planning to move all births and inpatient maternity care from Daisy Hill Hospital in Newry to Craigavon Area Hospital from Monday 23 November, with its chief executive telling Stormont's Health Committee the transfer is "highly probable".

The temporary consolidation would end births at a hospital that delivered 1,713 babies in the last year, according to trust figures, and send expectant mothers from Newry and the surrounding area to Craigavon, in Portadown, which delivered 2,768 over the same period. Health Minister Robbie Butler says no final decision has been taken.

In a statement to the News Letter on Monday, the trust said it "is continuing its extensive recruitment drives and efforts to obtain regional support to secure Consultant Obstetricians for Daisy Hill Hospital".

It added: "However the consultant obstetric workforce needed to safely maintain inpatient maternity services at Daisy Hill Hospital by mid-November has not yet been confirmed. We are therefore continuing to plan to temporarily consolidate births and inpatient maternity care at Craigavon Area Hospital from 23 November 2026."

Steve Spoerry, the trust's chief executive, told the Health Committee that keeping women and babies safe was its highest priority and that it would not have enough consultants to cover daytime and out-of-hours rotas at both units, the BBC reported.

The trust says it needs five more permanent consultant obstetricians to run a safe service at Daisy Hill. A trust letter seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service said the hospital had three substantive consultants, and Mr Butler has said at least eight are needed to sustain a safe rota.

The same letter offered consultants from elsewhere in Northern Ireland £128 an hour, or £3,072 for a 24-hour shift, plus hotel accommodation, as a bridging measure. Armagh I reported no apparent uptake of the offer.

Mr Butler told the Assembly: "No final decision has been taken to relocate inpatient maternity services from Daisy Hill [to Craigavon Area Hospital], however the consultant workforce position has become increasingly fragile". He has said absences among the consultant team at Craigavon mean the trust's normal contingency arrangements cannot provide the cover Daisy Hill needs.

The trust first set out the plan on 21 September, citing "a number of consultant obstetrician retirements and resignations". Colm McCafferty, its director of children, young people and women's services, said at the time: "I think women have absolutely the right of choice, but we can only provide that choice where we believe it's safe to do,"

Opposition has grown since. Newry, Mourne and Down District Council unanimously opposed the move in early October, a Unison petition to the minister has passed 13,000 signatures, according to the union, and the campaign group SOS Daisy Hill and Unison held a rally in Marcus Square, Newry, on Sunday. Estimates of the crowd ranged from hundreds to thousands, with no independent count.

SOS Daisy Hill has called the plan "another major blow to the people of Newry, Mourne and the wider region" and says it is "concerned about the capacity and safety implications of transferring this volume of maternity activity to Craigavon". The hospital lost emergency general surgery to Craigavon in 2024 after a temporary suspension in 2022.

One mother from the Newry area, identified by the BBC only as Natasha, described being transferred while in early labour. "I was having contractions every five minutes but a midwife from Daisy Hill travelled with me to the Ulster Hospital where I spent four nights, was stabilised and then sent home," she said. Her son Odin was later born at Daisy Hill at full term.

The trust has not set out which services would remain at Daisy Hill if births move, or what would trigger a return of inpatient care. It has opened a maternity information line on 028 3756 1325, from 2pm to 5pm, Monday to Friday.