MIDWIVES in Winchester look set to deliver more babies after health bosses approved plans to temporarily close a Hampshire birth centre to inpatients.
Women will not be able to give birth at the Andover Birth Centre until at least the New Year because of a shortage of midwives.
The temporary closure means that mums-to-be must have their babies at Winchester or Basingstoke instead.
However health bosses insist Winchester’s Royal Hampshire County Hospital will be able to cope with the four babies that are typically born every week in Andover.
Health bosses had originally anticipated closing the unit until April but now it looks like it could re-open earlier in the new year with reduced night cover.
The temporary closure at Andover will not affect antenatal and postnatal community care services or home births.
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