HEALTH reporter Dave Blackhurst met two very special guests among the great and the good at the official opening of the University Hospital of North Staffordshire's £40 million maternity unit

THE place may have been full of high-ranking NHS officials, big-hitting doctors and nurses, and even the national boss of a medical body or two.

But it was two gurgling bundles of joy who stole the show from the suits when North Staffordshire's £40 million new maternity hospital was officially opened yesterday.

Ruby Wynn, from Tunstall, made history by being the first baby born in the state-of-the-art unit when it become operational last April.

And Joseph Davis, aged 11 months, from Longton, was switched from a special care cot in the old building to the new centre during the same transfer of services which went ahead without a hitch over that single weekend.

So when it came to the formal affair of declaring the stunning centre open, the tots were invited back to be guests of honour.

The former multi-storey maternity block at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire has now been demolished, but not before it had delivered around a quarter of a million babies in its 42 years.

Joseph was one of the last of them and because he was six weeks premature he was placed into the special care unit as a precaution days before the big move.

He spent the rest of the four weeks before he was able to go home in the much bigger and brighter neonatal unit on the top floor of the new building – and his parents were blown away by it all.

Mum Jane said: "Even after we were discharged the special care midwives continued to visit our home every few days to check his progress. The staff have been superb throughout and the fact they new have this fabulous new place to work in is the icing on the cake.

Joseph's dad Mark, a Stoke-on-Trent city councillor, added: "We saw at first hand the old hospital shut and the new one open and felt privileged to be there at such a key moment in local medical history."

And Ruby's mum Kayleigh said: "It will always mean something special to me that I was the first to have a baby in the new hospital."

The three-storey unit, which along with a £30 million cancer centre is the first phase of the area's £400 million superhospital, was jointly opened by Professor Sir Sabaratnam Arulkumaran, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and Professor Cathy Warwick, general secretary of the Royal College of Midwives.

She said: "Everywhere in the building there is air, light and space – it is quite delightful.

"There are so many facilities here tailored for women, but that has not always been the case at other places which can start with sound intentions but get taken over by considerations such as finance."

Revealing he had worked in the old building in 1979, Sir Sabaratnam added: "The way daylight floods into every aspect of this building is marvellous. And a great deal of dignity and privacy has been built in."

A separate plaque was unveiled in the neonatal unit by Jane Abbott, head of programmes for BLISS, the national special care baby charity.