EAST Hampshire MP Michael Mates has accused health chiefs of "deception and dissembling" over the temporary closure of Petersfield's Grange birthing centre. And in a strongly worded statement this week he challenged them to come clean about their financial problems and treat Petersfield people with frankness and openness. Last week Save The Grange Campaigners expressed fears for the future of the birthing centre after a meeting with top officers from the East Hampshire Primary Care Trust and the Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust failed to give them a reopening date. The Grange closed on July 4 with little notice given to pregnant mums who had hoped to give birth there. Mums-to-be were told the temporary closure was due to unusually high numbers of staff on long-term sickness or maternity leave. Last week, after their meeting with health service officers, Save The Grange campaigners came away angry and disappointed, claiming the goalposts had been moved and the story about the reasons for the closure had changed. Campaign leader Sarah Roberts told The Herald after the meeting: "Now that 17 midwives have been appointed new financial issues have been blamed for the failure to re- open. It seems that the closures (of The Grange and Blackbrook in Fareham) are simply a cost-cutting measure as the campaign group have always feared." She added: "We have had a complete U-turn on the financial side over the last two months and our concern is in the next two months we will have a similar U-turn on the commitment to reopen The Grange at all." And this week Mr Mates said the local health trust had a number of questions to answer. Mr Mates said he was assured by the deputy chief executive of the Portsmouth Hospital NHS Trust, Bill Shields, at a public meeting he chaired in July that there were no financial restraints on The Grange. He had been told it would reopen as soon as sufficient midwives were recruited. But, said Mr Mates, there was now talk of a difficult financial situation. "What has happened between July and now?" he demanded. "Either they did not have the facts then - or they were equivocating and misleading the public at that meeting. I am afraid I have to conclude it is the latter." He said Mr Shields had told him before the public meeting that Hampshire and the Isle of Wight health community had to make savings of £10m per year. The trust had, he told Mr Mates, a large overspend just three months into the financial year. But this week Mr Mates demanded: "How did they come to have so large an overspend after only three months of the year? Why can they not come clean with us about the problems they have?" Most people who worked in the health service were dedicated to giving their best to provide quality care, he stressed, and he hesitated to go public with "such trenchant criticism", but he added: "This sort of deception and dissembling from a public body - any public body - is quite unacceptable." And he challenged them: "The trust owes it to all of us to be frank and open about its difficulties and then look to us to support them. "We cannot continue to accept half truths and false palliatives that we have been offered by the current management, and I am going to make it my business to ferret out the whole truth so that we know where we stand." Ursula Ward, Chief Executive of Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust, told The Herald: "The Grange and Blackbrook birth centres were temporarily closed on the 4 July due to the high number of midwives on maternity leave and sick leave.  "The decision was taken to temporarily close these centres to ensure the trust could continue to provide a safe level of service to mothers and babies. "In light of the shortage of midwives and despite the well-known financial position within the trust and across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, the trust's executive team approved requests for appointments in the maternity service. "A total of 12 full time midwives have been appointed on temporary contracts, 11 of which are newly qualified, and a further five midwives were given permanent contracts.  "In line with good practice, both in Portsmouth and in other trusts, newly qualified midwives complete a supported consolidation period. "During this time they will be 'doubling up' with experienced community staff supporting them when on call for births in the community for the foreseeable future.  "Therefore the trust remains unable to cover births across all six locations and will in the meantime only continue to offer births in four locations.  "To staff the peripheral centres would mean taking experienced midwives away from the main unit to look after 'low risk' mothers delivering in the birth centres. This would compromise the safety of 'high risk' mothers in the main unit."