A former council candidate has criticised the Caithness Health Action Team following renewed debate over maternity services at Caithness General Hospital.
The comments come after figures revealed that only six births took place at the hospital during 2025, the lowest annual total since the consultant led maternity unit was downgraded a decade ago.
Peter Newman, who previously stood as an SNP candidate in the Tain and Easter Ross by election, said the figures had prompted fresh commentary from the campaign group.
Mr Newman said:
“Recently, the campaign group, who has tirelessly pointed out the “downgrading” of the maternity services to a midwife-led service in the wake of a clinical review, were surprised to learn that only six births took place at Caithness General Hospital in 2025, the lowest annual total since the consultant-led maternity unit was downgraded a decade ago.
“I couldn’t help but be reminded of my late father-in-law who’s dictum, “no uterus, no comment,” has served me well.
“I break this useful maxim reluctantly but struggle to say silent as a parade of pale, stale, males continue to hold forth on maternity services.
“As ever, Liberal Democrat councillor, CHAT Chairperson and spokesperson, Ron Gunn piped up, revealing that he believes some couples are now choosing not to have children because of the stress of having to travel to the Highland capital.
“Other families are understood to have moved away from the county to be closer to larger hospitals.”
Newman continued:
“Well, who knew that having a group who have hounded everyone the media, the public, the staff at the hospital and the patients themselves by scare mongering and alarmist rhetoric, that there might have been damage to the reputation of the hospital?”
“Recently, I was talking to a woman who had a friend who had met her husband while working as a midwife in Caithness.
“She now lives in Canada and was looking at coming back to Scotland.
“She took one look at the stories generated by CHAT and abandoned any idea of coming home.
“CHAT wonder why people are moving away, but can’t seem to grasp that on Skye, the same midwife-led service has four times as many births: despite the same length of journey to Raigmore, the same demographics and the same issues of depopulation.
“What it does not have is an agitating group with no answers for how to recruit in the face of their own negative publicity.
“No matter that there is going to be the review that the same group asked for.
“No matter that that review has appointed Ann Gow and Professor Anna Glasier have been appointed as Vice Chairs of the Scottish Maternity and Neonatal Taskforce, supporting the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health Jenni Minto in leading the Taskforce’s work to improve maternity and neonatal care across Scotland.
“That’s two pretty heavy weight deputies: Ann Gow is Deputy Chief Executive of Healthcare Improvement Scotland whilst Professor Anna Glasier, a trained obstetrician, is Scotland’s Women’s Health Champion.
“That’s aside from the original review being run by an expert Professor from the University of Leicester and who was the person who recommended the move to the “hub and spoke” model which has led to there being no more baby deaths in the intervening years.
“As someone without a uterus, these are the people I trust to run a review and to be more expert than Gunn a politician and to the best of my knowledge not a trained obstetrician, or David Green and Jamie Stone, both of whom have tried to capitalise on this issue for political gain and none of whom are ever going to need to give birth.
“By repeating their grievances over and over again (ad nauseum some might say), they have driven women at their most vulnerable time to the very destination they don’t want them to use: Raigmore.
“Perhaps,” concluded Newman, “we would all be better off listening to the experts than generating discontent for political gain at the expense of our partners.”
