Almost half of maternity units in England were closed to pregnant women at some point in 2017, with the most common reasons for that being excessive number of patients or shortage of staff, the Labour Party said in a press release on Tuesday.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th August, 2018) Almost half of maternity units in England were closed to pregnant women at some point in 2017, with the most common reasons for that being excessive number of patients or shortage of staff, the Labour Party said in a press release on Tuesday.
"New research published today by the Labour Party has revealed that nearly half of England's maternity units closed to new mothers at some point in 2017, up on the previous year. The most commonly reported reason for closures was capacity and staffing issues," the press release said.
According to the Labour's information, at least 287 cases of maternity units' closure to new mothers were registered in 2017.
Labour's Shadow State Secretary for Health Jonathan Ashworth, in turn, criticized the Conservative government for underfunding and mismanagement of England's National Health Service (NHS).
"Under this Government, maternity units are understaffed and under pressure ... Every pregnant women turned away from a maternity unit due to staff shortages and shortages of beds and cots deserves an apology from Government ministers for the years of Tory cuts, deliberate under resourcing and mismanagement of the NHS," Ashworth said as quoted in the press release.
The NHS has recently been facing a major crisis over the lack of funding and labor shortages. The problem of insufficient staffing in the country further aggravated due to thousands of EU nationals' quitting their jobs in the sector over Brexit-related uncertainty.
