MATERNITY care as it has been known at Maidstone Hospital will disappear with the opening of the new Pembury Hospital in 2010.

That is the stark reality facing parents and families across the County Town under proposals unveiled this week by the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust.

Mothers enduring problematic pregnancies or wanting procedures such as epidurals or caesarean births will no longer be able to access the hospital on their doorstep.

Instead, for most pregnant women across Mid-Kent, the new Pembury Hospital will be their child's birthplace when it opens in six years time.

A major health review five years ago decided against centralising maternity services away from Maidstone. It was defeated following a huge KM campaign and strong objections by staff. That option is now back on the table.

The latest proposals, which will go out for public consultation later this month, include the following options that trust chiefs claim are essential but are expected to cause huge concern in the community.

A women's unit would be created at each hospital providing outpatient care, antenatal care, day case surgery, early pregnancy services, foetal patients, outpatients and diagnostics, urgent assessment and short stay treatment.

The trust would also develop midwife-led care focused on supporting natural deliveries home births with new birthing centres at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells.

The new birthing centre would NOT necessarily be based at Maidstone Hospital, despite the current maternity unit being next to existing emergency operating theatres.

Trust chiefs are looking at basing the new unit elsewhere in Maidstone borough to avoid confusion by patients unable to understand, should problems occur, why they have to be transferred to Pembury with surgeons on duty next door.

The new centres would support a single consultant-led unit managing all complicated births and one special care baby unit at the new hospital in Pembury. An unspecified number of rest rooms and overnight accommodation would be made available for fathers and family members wanting to stay at the hospital and be close to their loved ones in the final stages of labour.

It is believed the new 22-cot maternity centre at Pembury would be expected to handle up to 5,000 deliveries per year. That would mean an estimated 1,000 "low risk" babies (at current population levels being born either at home or at birthing units in Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells.

Explaining the rationale behind the changes the trust's chief executive Rose Gibb, said: "Since 1999 when these services were last reviewed it has become increasingly apparent that it isn't possible or sustainable to have complex obstetric services, children's services and neonatal care in Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells in future.

"By basing the obstetric unit for complex deliveries at the new Pembury Hospital we give the greatest number of patients possible access and choice to use this service.

"People living in Maidstone also have a choice to go to other hospitals in Medway or Ashford, whereas people living in Tunbridge Wells have more restricted choice."