MATERNITY services in Salford were delivered a fatal blow in a controversial decision to close all of Hope Hospital's baby units.
The Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts met on Friday and decided to shut Hope's maternity and neonatal intensive care units as part of a review of services across Greater Manchester.
The £60 million move, which will be brought in over the next five years, would effectively mark the end of the Salfordian as, apart from those mothers who opt for home births, no babies would be born in the city again.
Thousands of people objected to the Making It Better proposals but the opposition appeared to carry no weight with the decision makers who went with the 'preferred option'.
Panel members decided not to consider Option C - the only one which would have seen services retained at Hope - because they wanted baby and children's services sited together.
With Salford's children's hospital currently at Pendlebury and moving to St Mary's in Manchester in 2009, Hope did not stand a chance.
Alan Campbell, who was representing Salford PCT, said he could not support it but the rest of the panel agreed that Option C did not 'fulfil the committee's objectives'.
Mothers will still be able to access ante and post natal care at Hope but will have to travel outside the city to give birth. The nearest maternity units will be at St Mary's, Bolton, Wigan, Warrington or North Manchester.
Neonatal intensive care will be delivered at three specialist super centres at Bolton, Oldham and St Mary's.
Hope's chief executive David Dalton said he was 'hugely disappointed' with the decision.
He said: "If you select a preferred option before consultation which reduces the number of sites from 13 to eight then it will not come as a surprise that all those eight who gain from the preferred option have supported it.
"We are surprised and disappointed that the Joint Committee chose not to apply the selection criteria in full to each option to identify the relative pros and cons of each option.
"Instead, they chose to consider the issue of co-location of neonatal and paediatric services first and completely separately from all other factors.
"This effectively eliminated Salford's services from further consideration and effectively signalled the closure of maternity services at Salford."