Mother's fight for neo-natal beds

Sarah Fawcett with her daughter Isabelle

More than 2,300 people have joined Mrs Fawcett's Facebook group

A mother has started a campaign against the temporary closure of an intensive care unit for babies at a West Yorkshire hospital.

Newborn children needing intensive care at Dewsbury Hospital are being moved 18 miles (30km) to Pontefract.

Sarah Fawcett, whose premature baby Isabelle was treated at Dewsbury, has set up a protest group on the social networking website Facbook.

The hospital trust blamed staff shortages and sickness for the move.

Isabelle weighed just 1lb 12oz when she was born prematurely at a hospital in Sheffield last February.

She was transferred to Dewsbury and spent several weeks on the neonatal unit.

'Vulnerable babies'

Mrs Fawcett, who lives in Liversedge, told BBC News: "[The staff were] absolutely fantastic.

"She was constantly monitored, the staff were very, very helpful and very friendly and easy going.

"I think it's frightening to be honest, from a mother's point of view, if you are in Dewsbury and you have had your baby and your baby's got to be shipped off somewhere else."

The Facebook group, called 'Stop the Closure of Dewsbury Neonatal Intensive Care Unit', has more than 2,300 members.

Tracy McErlain-Burns, director of nursing for the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "The decision that we took was on the basis of being unable to be certain that we could provide safe, high quality care to very vulnerable babies.

"The decision was that we should move, on a temporary basis, the very highly-specialist, high-dependent, intensive care facility from Dewsbury and provide that facility, in the short term, through Pontefract alone."