MORE than 6,000 people have now joined a campaign calling for the return of full maternity services to Huddersfield.

A group on the social networking website Facebook called Moms (Move our Maternity Services Back to Huddersfield) last night had 6,058 members.

Nearly 2,000 people have signed a petition on the 10 Downing Street website backing the campaign.

To view or sign the petition click here.

Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Huddersfield Royal Infirmary, insists it will not bow to public pressure on the issue.

A spokeswoman last night said: “Our position remains the same.”

But Jason McCartney, the Conservative’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Colne Valley and one of the campaign co-ordinators, said the fight would go on.

“At the end of the day, the NHS is paid for by taxpayers and it’s not a private business,” he said.

“The hospital is there to serve the people of Huddersfield.

“It’s up to us to articulate that and show the people in charge that it’s our money and we have a right to have a say over how it’s spent.”

The Moms campaign was started by Alanna Delahaye and Glynn Bates, of Coombe Road, Golcar.

They lost their daughter, Maisie, last September when Alanna was rushed to Calderdale Royal Hospital in Halifax to give birth by emergency caesarean section.

She was due to give birth at Huddersfield Birth Centre on September 13 but was taken to Halifax when she discovered Maisie’s heart rate was dangerously slow during a final routine health check on September 8.

Maisie was not breathing when she was delivered, but doctors managed to revive her. But she was left severely brain damaged because her umbilical cord had been wrapped tightly around her and had cut off oxygen to her brain.

The couple took the heartbreaking decision to take her off life-support three days later. They believe Maisie would have lived if consultant-led maternity services were still open at HRI.

The services were moved to Halifax in August after the birth centre was built at HRI, despite massive public opposition.

Alanna said: “The campaign group is doing really well – the numbers are going up every day. We just hope it makes a difference.”