The Ferret Highlights Once Again How The Far North Including Caithness Suffers From Reduced Maternity Services

23rd October 2023

Lack of local maternity services puts rural Scottish mothers at risk.

On a freezing cold January afternoon in 2017, expectant mother Pranjali Christian felt her contractions start. It was four weeks before her due date and she tried to dismiss them as false labour pains - commonly known as Braxton Hicks - as she went about her day in her hometown of Thurso, on the north coast of Scotland.

But it got harder to ignore the increasingly intense pain and by 8 pm that evening, worried that something was "really wrong", she phoned the midwife, based in Wick, a half hour drive away.

As she was still weeks from full-term pregnancy the midwife tried to reassure her telling her: "Don't worry. Just go to sleep. Keep doing what you're doing and if you need, give us a call back." But a few hours later, Christian decided she had to be seen.

As she didn't have a car - and had been told she could only use an ambulance in an emergency if she was in labour - she had arranged for a friend from church to drive her. But when they arrived at the midwife unit, Christian was told she was already two centimetres dilated.

"It was quite alarming," she remembered.

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