The UK government has been criticised for failing to address “inconsistent” restrictions on pregnant women’s check-ups that have remained in place at some hospitals even after pubs and ‘non-essential’ businesses have been allowed to reopen.
Scotland and Northern Ireland have guaranteed women the right to have their partner or another companion with them during antenatal appointments, where serious illnesses may be detected, following outcry over COVID-19 restrictions that forbade this.
But nine NHS Trusts across London told openDemocracy that they still require women to attend their antenatal appointments alone – including the University College Hospital where Boris Johnson’s partner gave birth in April.
Trusts serving North East Lincolnshire, Cornwall and Devon – areas of England with some of the lowest COVID-19 infection rates, below 160 per 100,000 people as of 22 June – also say on their websites that companions are banned from most antenatal appointments.
Three of the London trusts said their policies were “in line with NHS guidance” and “follow national guidelines” – despite the NHS lifting its national suspension of hospital visitors on 5 June, leaving it to “local discretion by trusts and other NHS bodies”.
The other London trusts gave no explanation for their enduring restrictions, or said that they were in place to limit COVID-19 exposure risks. The Department of Health and Social Care refused to provide a comment for this article, and NHS England did not respond.
It’s “deeply concerning”, London MP Stella Creasy told openDemocracy, that the government has developed clear policies “about whether you can go fishing, horseracing or to the pub… but not when you receive important health news at a scan”.
Creasy said she has been “deluged with heartbreaking stories” of women affected by these restrictions, and called on the UK government to “put in place clear guidelines to protect and support [women] to prevent further trauma.”
Birthrights, a UK charity focused on women’s rights in childbirth, has also sounded the alarm over enduring visitor restrictions and what it has called “an inconsistent, disproportionate and inhumane response by some NHS Trusts” throughout the pandemic.
It could make sense, said Maria Booker, Birthrights programme director, to restrict visitors in small hospitals that don’t have much space for social distancing, or in “COVID hotspots” – which are not in London, Cornwall, Devon or North East Lincolnshire.
Booker said she fears that some trusts have maintained visitor bans simply because “it just feels easier… to stick with the status quo without appreciating that this is a continued restriction on people’s rights that may no longer be proportionate”.
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Claire Provost Nandini Archer | Radio Free (2020-07-22T12:30:49+00:00) UK government criticised for “inconsistent” restrictions on pregnant women’s check-ups. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2020/07/22/uk-government-criticised-for-inconsistent-restrictions-on-pregnant-womens-check-ups/
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