"The government regrets the closure of the maternity ward," Health Minister Mauro Pedrazzini said in a statement.
The doctors had decided to leave amid uncertainty over the future of the establishment, the authorities in the tiny landlocked country between Switzerland and Austria explained, saying the ward would close for good during the spring.
The citizens of Liechtenstein in 2011 rejected by popular vote to dish out the cash needed to build a new hospital building and replace the ageing infrastructure.
Since then, the authorities in the country of fewer than 37,000 people, have been struggling to push through a modernisation plan for the maternity ward to bring it up to the standards demanded by the doctors working there.
Each year, some 200 babies are born at the ward, while another some 200 babies are born to Liechtenstein citizens who decide to travel abroad to give birth, mainly to neighbouring Switzerland and Austria.
Once the Liechtenstein ward closes, all young Liechtensteiners will be born abroad.
LIECHTENSTEIN
Liechtenstein shuts ward after maternity docs quit
Liechtenstein will close its only maternity ward, where some 200 babies are born each year, after all the gynaecologists working there quit at the same time, the government said on Wednesday.
ARMY
Swiss history: How the army attacked Liechtenstein three times — by mistake
Switzerland has been neutral for the past 500 years. But that didn’t stop it from “invading” its tiny neighbour three times in the past 35 years. How did this happen?
Updated: 27 April 2023 17:00 CEST
Liechtenstein lies very – and, it would seem, dangerously —close to Switzerland. Where a border should be between the two Alpine nations there is only a footbridge, which may explain why the Swiss military made its way into the minuscule, 23-kilometre-long principality with such ease.
The first incident in the ‘oops…sorry’ category happened in 1985. During a training exercise in the proper use of ground-to-air-missiles, Swiss artillery launched rockets straight into Liechtenstein, igniting a massive forest fire along with a diplomatic snafu.
At first the Swiss claimed that strong winds, which were blowing in the region on that day, were to blame for the misdirected launch. But in the end, the government paid several million francs for damages inflicted on Liechtenstein’s forests.
Seven years later, Switzerland struck again.
Army recruits were on maneuvers when they received orders to set up an observation post in Triesenberg. The soldiers obliged, until local residents started to ask what the Swiss military unit was doing in their town. It was only then that the recruits — and their commanders — realised that Triesenberg is located in Liechtenstein.
Fast-forward to a rainy night in 2007, when 170 troops armed with rifles (but apparently not with a GPS) stumbled into Liechtenstein. They marched on for more than a kilometre until someone exclaimed, “Hey, this isn’t Switzerland”! (“Hey, das isch nöd d Schwiiz”)!
At this point the soldiers turned around and hot-footed it back home.
In all fairness, it is difficult to tell Switzerland apart from Liechtenstein, even in broad daylight. Rural areas in both countries look the same, and people in both nations speak the same Swiss German dialect and use Swiss franc as their currency.
Imagine how much more complicated it is to distinguish one country from another when it’s dark and raining.
According to reports, the incident did not have any political repercussions.
“It’s not like they stormed over here with attack helicopters or something”, Markus Amman, Liechtenstein’s spokesman for the Interior, remarked at the time.
“These things happen”, he added philosophically, no doubt referring to the two previous episodes when the mighty Swiss army came uninvited.
READ MORE: Swiss history: How the Swiss army refused to decommission its pigeons
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