THE doors have closed for the last time at a North-East maternity unit after the numbers of pregnant women using the facility dropped to an unsustainable level.
Langbaurgh Primary Care Trust (PCT) first sounded the alarm bells in June last year after discovering that only one in eight eligible births were taking place at Guisborough hospital.
Following a 13-week consultation it was discovered that the dwindling numbers were put down to the vast majority of mothers-to-be preferring to give birth in the more modern unit at The James Cook University Hospital, in Middlesbrough, citing pain relief and perceived risk factors as their main reasons.
The staff at the unit are employed by South Tees Hospitals NHS Trust and Langbaurgh PCT has been assured that there will be no redundancies as a result of closure.
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