LUDLOW town centre is expected to come to a standstill on Saturday (December 3) as people take part in a major march and demonstration.

Every household in Ludlow has been sent a leaflet in the hope that thousands of people will march to defend the town’s maternity hospital.

Traffic will be brought to a standstill when banner-waving marchers make their way from the cannon outside Ludlow Castle to the hospital.

Christmas shoppers are likely to be affected by the protest that starts at 12noon.

The march is expected to be the largest in Ludlow for a decade.

It has been organised by Ludlow mums Sarah Meek and Alison Hiles who fear for the future of the maternity unit that was closed for a week earlier in the autumn.

This followed problems with the building although the unit was rapidly reopened in a ward of Ludlow Hospital that was mothballed last year.

Despite the rapid reinstatement of the service and reassurances given at a recent public meeting of the Ludlow Health Forum there are fears for the long-term future of the maternity unit in Ludlow.

The concern is that health chiefs, faced with finding savings of £1.5 million on maternity services in Shropshire, have the Ludlow unit in their sights.

Concerns about maternity services in Ludlow have been heightened by a complaint by the Shropshire Defend our NHS group that expectant women in Ludlow have been bullied.

According to Gill George, who lives in Ludlow and leads the Shropshire Defend our NHS Group, women within weeks of birth were told that their plans would have to change.

She claims that the women who are not considered suitable to give birth in a maternity-led unit such as Ludlow have been affected.

Gill George said that the women were told that if they gave birth in Hereford rather than Telford then they would be denied post-natal care in Ludlow.

“Expectant mothers in Ludlow and South Shropshire who need a consultant-led delivery often go to their local hospital in Hereford to give birth,” said Gill George.

“They then come back to their local midwife-led maternity unit in Ludlow for post-natal care.

“Shropshire's hospital bosses have an unhealthy obsession with 'keeping the Shropshire £ in Shropshire' - so they decided to punish those women, and to try and bully them into travelling much further to Telford to give birth.

“How? Take away their post-natal care. Stunningly vicious and cruel - but women two or three weeks away from giving birth were told their local post-natal care was being taken away unless they changed hospital.

“This is what happens when you run the NHS as a fragmented system of small businesses, all of them starved of money. Callous stupidity tends to prevail, as hospitals compete with one another for ever-decreasing NHS funds.

“Local people said 'No way'. Excellent joint working between the new Save Ludlow Maternity Unit campaign and Shropshire Defend Our NHS produced a hasty U-turn. The post-natal care has now been reinstated.”

Jo Banks, women and children’s care group director at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH), said: “The decision to briefly suspend post-natal provision at Ludlow Midwife Led Unit (MLU) for women giving birth in Hereford was taken based on information received during an initial assessment of the situation. I would like to apologise for any concern this may have caused.

“We are keen to encourage women to receive all of their care in Shropshire to enable them to benefit from continuity of care.

“However, we also understand that women should have the right to choose where they receive their care and therefore we are again providing post-natal services at Ludlow for women who have given birth in Hereford. We hope that by doing so women will be encouraged to use all the services we provide here at SaTH.”