In August, local GP Matthew Stokes called on the Southern District Health Board to make Entonox (nitrous oxide) available at Lumsden following a series of urgent births — a plea which was made public this week after a series of emails were released under the Official Information Act.
Dr Stokes said a third of urgent cases seen in recent weeks required Entonox, and its unavailability had resulted in one pregnant mother being driven 50km to Winton on icy roads.
A stakeholders group organised following the controversial decision to alter Lumsden from a primary birthing unit to a hub met yesterday.
Its convener, Gore District Council Mayor Tracy Hicks, said the meeting was the most positive and co-operative the group had had so far.
‘‘There was general agreement it (offering Entonox at Lumsden) seemed a reasonable idea, but it was a matter of working through the parameters of how that might happen.’’
Meanwhile, local Clutha-Southland MP Hamish Walker yesterday told Parliament that opening the hub in Lumsden had been an ‘‘unsafe, life-threatening, unethical and failed social experiment.’’
Speaking in the general debate, Mr Walker, who took an unsuccessful petition to Parliament which called for the Lumsden Maternity Centre to be saved, said locals had been promised hubs would have critical life-saving equipment, but when they opened they did not.
‘‘The Government's own list MP, Liz Craig, two days after the closure, emailed one of her constituent's concerns that ‘Despite the DHB announcing that the Lumsden child and maternal hub is operational, unfortunately it's not’,’’ Mr Walker said.
‘‘During my petition to the Health Committee to reinstate services, the DHB fronted up and said they knew nothing about these concerns, and according to them, it was all operational.
‘‘Now, if it was operational, why is the Government's own list MP emailing in these concerns?’’
