MORE than 100 women packed into The Square with their young children and babies on Monday to protest against the closure of the town's Grange Birth Centre. It was the first of a series of protest meetings planned by the Petersfield and Liss branch of the NCT in a bid to get health chiefs in Portsmouth to rethink their controversial decision. Expectant mums and midwives were outraged when it was announced two weeks ago that The Grange was to close for six months from July 4. They were told the closure of the Petersfield and Blackbrook (Gosport Peninsula) birth centres were necessary due to staff shortages elsewhere in the region. Portsmouth Hospitals National Health Service Trust announced that 11 full time midwives out of 183, along with a number of health care support workers, were either on, or about to go on. maternity leave. A further eight were off sick. And women expecting to have their babies at The Grange have been told that from Monday of this week they have a choice of a home birth or having their baby in the Mary Rose Unit at St Mary's Hospital in Portsmouth. Last week nearly 180 angry mums, expectant mums and midwives crowded into the Petersfield United Reformed Church vowing to fight the closure plans and voicing their concerns at what they believed to be a thinly- veiled attempt to close the centre permanently. On Monday banner-waving protesters collected in The Square, where they were addressed by campaign leader Sarah Roberts of the Petersfield and Liss NCT. She urged objectors to make their voices heard, to attend another public meeting and to sign the petition opposing the closure of the birth centres and calling for the "valuable maternity services" to be reopened. East Hampshire MP Michael Mates is to chair a public meeting in Petersfield which will give health chiefs a chance to justify their decision to close the centre. The meeting, organised by the Petersfield and Liss NCT, will take place in the Festival Hall at 8 pm on Thursday, July 28. Campaign leader Sarah Roberts told The Herald that members of the Portsmouth NHS Hospitals Trust and the East Hampshire Primary Care Trust had agreed to attend. Mrs Roberts said: "It was disappointing that none of these people came to our first meeting. The meeting was organised at the last minute, but it was important, and now we want to give them a chance to stand up and be counted and explain their decisions to the people of Petersfield." Mrs Roberts told protesters they could now sign a petition against the closure online by accessing the website http://www.petition-them.com">www.petition-them.com Among the protesters in The Square were East Hampshire Liberal Democrat Parliamentary spokesman Ruth Bright, her husband Diccon and their two-year-old daughter Orla. She told The Herald: "I think this closure is counter productive and a mistake. In human terms it is very stressful for women due to give birth in three or four weeks to hear this news. There has been a total lack of consultation." "At The Grange women were given help to have a natural birth, so in purely financial and human terms it is a mistake to close the place. I am going to carry on being involved in this campaign. Like so many women of my age, I think this could be me next time. Even if The Grange does reopen, confidence has been shaken and that is very sad." "I gave birth at the North Hants Hospital and was personally very disappointed by my experience in the big hospital, and I know many mothers could also be similarly disappointed because of this closure." Former mayor of Petersfield Liz Mullenger, who opened The Grange in l992, also attended the protest pram rally on Monday. "I am outraged at this," she told The Herald. "The whole concept of the Grange was that it was a community hospital. This goes against the government's statement that people should have a choice. People locally are choosing The Grange, and now they are being denied that choice. Having to go to Portsmouth instead is the equivalent of factory farming compared with free range." She said she was also outraged that money was raised locally to provide special maternity beds for Petersfield and the health authority was trying to take these beds out of the town. "This is scandalous and I am right behind this campaign to save The Grange," she added. Barbara Kott, a former NCT president and an antenatal teacher since l976, said: "I am horrified by this and that there has been no consultation." Royal Surrey County Hospital midwife Sue Rutter, who is also contracted to do bank shifts at The Grange, was also among the protesters on Monday. "I think it's terrible that The Grange is being closed at such short notice," she said. "The midwives do a tireless job to promote the unit and increase the birth rate there. It was just beginning to go the right way and get busier, and then they closed it. How are we going to get the faith of the women back again? This has erased all the good work that has been done. "In addition, two weeks ago the head of midwifery at Portsmouth was at Brunel University talking about normality in birth and saying how brilliant her outreach units such as The Grange were, yet here we are a fortnight later with The Grange closed. It seems crazy." And independent midwife Joy Horner, who is also an antenatal teacher for the NCT, added: "I think this is appalling. It is the thin end of the wedge towards centralisation in Portsmouth." "The Grange is a fantastic place, a lot of people come from Portsmouth for post-natal care. We are getting more reports of poor post-natal care at Portsmouth so we need places like The Grange. Alongside the NCT rally on Monday local mothers organised a second protest outside Petersfield Hospital. They were voicing fury that special maternity beds bought with money raised by Petersfield volunteers may be moved to Gosport. Members of the Women's Royal Voluntary Service raised £5,000 for the three birthing beds in April, and say they are devastated that they could be taken out of the town. Last week, Elsie Cane, WRVS project organiser for the tea bar at Petersfield Hospital, said: "It makes you feel your efforts have gone to waste - it's a joke." On Monday mothers staged a "lie-in" on beds which had been loaded onto lorries outside the hospital. Mr Mates told The Herald this week: "I am not a bit surprised at how strong the feeling is in Petersfield over the closure of The Grange. I have had hundreds of protests by email and post, and I congratulate all those who took part in the pram rally in The Square and the bed sit-in outside the hospital on Monday. "If the national health authorities are surprised at the strength of feeling, they should not be. It is something that has been badly managed and badly presented and puts the NHS services as a whole in a very bad light." "I am looking forward to chairing the meeting on Thursday, July 28 in the Festival Hall at Petersfield, and will do my best to see that all questions are answered." "I have written to Ursula Ward, chief executive of the Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust, asking detailed questions which I expect to be answered before the meeting." l Mums-to-be mount bed protest: page 3.