Double whammy for respected obstetrician: Doctors’ order “withdraws institutional confidence”

Respected obstetrician Diogo Ayres de Campos has had a difficult last few days. He has been removed from his position as head of Obstetrics in CHULN (the university hospital centre of Lisbon north), ostensibly for disagreeing with a plan for upgrading the service at Santa Maria Hospital, and now the Ordem dos Médicos (Doctors’ Order) has withdrawn confidence in him due to his support of the idea of allowing low risk pregnancies to be handled by specialist nurses trained in midwifery. The nurses, it has to be said, welcomed this idea, as it is one that is popular in Europe, and indeed part of European directive that Portugal simply refuses to adopt. Ayres de Campos may not have pleased ‘the powers in healthcare’ earlier this year, when he advocated that the way maternity services are being run in this country needs to be radically rethought, due to an alarming spike in maternal mortality.