A petition bidding to stave off the downgrading of services at Lumsden Maternity Centre may not be be considered by Parliament's health select committee before the reduction takes place.
The downgrade, a change of service level for the Southland town brought about by the Southern District Health Board's regional maternity plan, takes effect in two weeks.
Clutha-Southland MP Hamish Walker has a petition with more than 5000 signatures calling for the Lumsden downgrade to be halted so it can go to the committee for consideration.
The committee previously stood the petition down as legal action was a possibility, but the owners of the centre subsequently chose not to seek judicial review of the decision.
That put the petition back on the select committee's work list, but the deadline for the downgrade arrived before it had a chance to prepare a final report on the petition.
It was not on the agenda for tomorrow's meeting at time of writing.
Mr Walker feared unless the petition made next week's agenda there would be no chance of it succeeding.
"If the health select committee decides to investigate, this will take weeks or months. which may be pointless if the centre is already closed,'' Mr Walker said.
"This is about equality for rural mothers and babies who do not deserve to be treated like second-class citizens.''
A spokesman said Mr Walker's petition had been considered at four previous committee meetings, but at this stage was not on the agenda for this week.
"Items are included on a committee's agenda at the request of a member of the committee, up until 2pm the day before the meeting,'' he said.
"The committee is likely to consider it again when it is able to move to the next step in the process.''
