A mother who gave birth to tiny premature twins in York was stunned when doctors said: "They will have to go to Manchester."

Ryan Murrie, given scale by his father' s hand, at the neonatal department in St James's Hospital in Leeds

Karen Kelsall and her partner, John Murrie, say York District Hospital's Special Care Baby Unit did not have sufficient staff to care for babies Jack and Ryan, who each weighed less than a bag of sugar.

The twins were only spared an ambulance journey across the Pennines when St James's Hospital in Leeds said it would be able to accommodate them.

But the couple, from South Bank, are still upset that the tots, who were born 14 weeks premature on October 29, had to be taken off their tubes, moved into portable incubators and taken in two ambulances to Leeds while still in a very vulnerable condition.

The couple believe that insufficient NHS resources are to blame.

John, 41, who works at Portasilo in York, said: "They said they didn't have enough staff to care for the two babies over a weekend. But how much did it cost the NHS for two ambulances and two doctors? It seems a crazy situation."

Karen, 30, who works behind the bar at South Bank Social Club and also at Fred's Bakers in South Bank, stressed that they had no complaints about medical staff at either York or Leeds. "They have been fantastic."

And she said Ryan, who weighed in at 1lb, 15ozs and Jack, 1lb, 14ozs, were doing well. Jack had now come off his ventilator.

Dr Ray Marks, executive medical director for York NHS Trust, said York had funding for two intensive care cots in the Special Care Baby Unit, each of which required at least one specially trained nurse around the clock. They were not available at the time the twins were born.

"We tried our best to accommodate these twins, because we knew the parents were anxious for them to stay in York, but we just could not get sufficient specially trained staff to look after them."

The only option was to transfer the babies to the nearest hospital with appropriate facilities available. Initially, St James's Hospital had said it could not take the twins and they had been due to go to the next nearest unit at Manchester.

However, St James's had subsequently discovered that two babies which it had thought would need ventilating did not need such treatment after all, and it could actually take Jack and Ryan.

Dr Marks said he understood and sympathised with the couple's concerns, and added that the York Trust would like to increase the number of intensive care cots at York to three.

But this would require an extra four nurses to provide round-the-clock cover through the year, and such an expansion would require the agreement of North Yorkshire Health Authority.

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