Pregnant mum forced to travel 1,000 miles in one week to give birth after local neonatal unit shuts
Pregnant mum forced to travel 1,000 miles in one week to give birth after local neonatal unit shuts
Danielle Richards and partner Ceirion Griffiths live in Wales but were sent to Bristol and then Oxford – twice
A mother was forced to travel nearly 1,000 miles in one week while heavily pregnant to give birth – because her local neonatal unit was shut.
Instead of going to Cardiff, Danielle Richards and partner Ceirion Griffiths were sent first to Bristol, then back home and on to Oxford twice before their baby’s birth at the city’s John Radcliffe Hospital in October.
The young mother was told in September when she was 32 weeks pregnant that her baby had a hole in his heart and other problems and would need operations and neonatal care from birth.
As Cardiff’s neonatal unit was shut because of infections doctors told Danielle she would give birth in one of four hospitals, Bristol, Birmingham, Southampton or Oxford.
Transferred first to St Michael’s Hospital, Bristol, for the birth to be induced on October 12, Danielle said she drove there with Ceirion only to be told there were no beds.
Sent home worried and frustrated, the 25-year-old couple were next told to drive to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford on October 16 – but were sent home the same day again because there were no beds.
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