Maternity Services in East Sussex
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Key Issues for Gypsies and Travellers with Maternity Care
A recent report by the Maternity Alliance and published by Midwives Information and Resource Service – MIDIRS highlighted the following key issues and recommendations:
- Problems registering for Primary Care Services
G.Ps refusing Gypsies and Travellers temporary or permanent registration, and therefore access to antenatal care; a lack of awareness among Gypsy and Traveller women that they can self-refer to midwives.
- Inflexible Services and personnel
Failure to work effectively with people who have different lifestyles, needs and expectations of health and social services. Unfriendly, unhelpful and sometimes discriminatory attitudes of NHS staff towards Gypsies and Travellers.
- Information and literacy
Almost total lack of information materials on pregnancy, childbirth and the postnatal period geared towards Gypsies and Travellers, many of whom cannot read and write, as well as little or no information on how to access and use maternity services. These are compounded by Gypsy and Traveller women’s reluctance to attend antenatal classes and health professional’s failure to fill the information gap caused by this
- Lack of identity
Lack of monitoring for Gypsies and Travellers in the NHS or on ethnic monitoring forms, making them invisible to health service planners.
Main Recommendations
- Employ specialist Gypsy and Traveller health workers in areas with significant numbers of Travellers to help women access mainstream services and provide specialist on-site services where necessary.
- Provide information for Gypsies and Travellers on pregnancy, child birth and the post natal period, produced in consultation with Gypsies and Travellers and bearing in mind varying literacy levels.
- Ensure that NHS staff are aware of the difficulties Gypsies and Travellers have in accessing services and the consequences of this, by providing general training on cultural and ethnic issues to all staff and specialist training for staff in areas with large Traveller communities.
- Include Romany Gypsies and Irish Travellers as separate categories on the Census so that national and local service planners are more aware of their numbers, whereabouts and needs.
- Increase the number of sites, permanent and transit, and ensure those sites have good facilities.
Further copies of the report above can be obtained from:
MIDIRS
9 Elmdale Road
Bristol, BS8 1SL
Customer Services Freephone: 0800 581009
Tel: 0117 925 1791
Fax 0117 925 1792
Email: editor@midirs.org
Website: www.midirs.org
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Maternity Services in East Sussex
Newly delivered or pregnant women can self refer to either of the hospitals below, or contact Jan Mattis, Specialist Midwife on: 07795 498509. In an emergency contact the hospitals directly on:
Royal Sussex County Hospital: 01273 664793
Princess Royal Hospital: 01444 441881 ext 8414/8
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Author: Zoe Matthews
