NHS CUTS WILL KILL KIDS
Vital care axed as Tory policies lead to crippling staff shortages
NHS staff and parents fear drastic cuts to paediatric services will lead to deaths.
Bosses say the proposals are due to staff shortages – a crisis blamed on Tory policy.
Emma Wilcock, whose girl Mya was saved at a Lincolnshire hospital, said: “Kids will die.”
PROPOSED closures at an NHS hospital would mean children facing a journey of more than an hour to get emergency treatment.
Chiefs are considering axing all of its key paediatric services, sparking fears delays could prove fatal. A nurse who works there said: “There will be children dying over this and it’s heartbreaking.”
Bosses say they are being forced into considering the extreme measures because they are so understaffed they cannot provide a safe level of care.
Whistle-blowers blame staffing problems on the Tories, who are responsible for years of low NHS wages.
Similar recruitment issues are being faced by NHS trusts across the country as disillusioned nurses and doctors leave the profession in their thousands.
There are fears the proposed closures at the Pilgrim Hospital in Boston, Lincs, will be just the tip of the iceberg.
The nurse who spoke out has more reason than most to understand what is at stake – her infant son was saved there after contracting septicaemia.
The nurse said: “It’s scandalous they want to close the children’s services – what’s going to happen to kids in a similar position to my son in the future?
“Mortality rates will go up because when children fall seriously ill they go downhill quickly – every minute counts.
“I blame the Government for these staff shortages. We have had no real pay rise in a decade and only got a backhanded one in the past few months.
“We are being treated awfully... We need an injection of cash and decent management, someone that knows what they’re doing and who cares.”
The hospital serves an estimated 250,000 people in and around towns such as Boston, Skegness and Spalding.
If services close, children would have to go 40 miles to Lincoln, or even further to Nottingham, Sheffield or Kettering.
Alison Marriott, 40, who gave birth to her third child at the Pilgrim a fortnight ago, says older daughter Naomi, three, owes her life to the hospital.
The mum: “She had to be delivered within 15 minutes after I went into labour at 28 weeks.
“She would have been dead or braindamaged if it had happened at home. If the closures go ahead mortality will go up in the area – and disabilities.” Alison, from Boston, and married to Neil, 39, added: “Thousands of babies and children will be affected every year.”
Emma Wilcock, 38, from Boston, whose daughter Mya, five, was born with a collapsed lung, said: “The transfer time to another hospital will be the difference between life and death.
“If these wards close people are going to die. The doctors and nurses there saved my daughter’s life.”
United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust says it has had a long-standing shortage of children’s docs and nurses.
The trust, which runs at an £80million deficit, says it cannot find enough staff despite an “extensive” recruitment drive.
Locals think the proposed closures are part of the trust’s plan for £19.7million of savings this financial year.
ULHT medical director Dr Neill Hepburn said: “We understand how concerning the potential loss or change to any service can be, particularly when it involves children. We haven’t made a decision yet and we are working hard to avoid moving services... This isn’t about saving money, it’s about safety.
“All options being discussed will cost more than now.”
Last Wednesday in the Commons, local MP Matt Warman asked Theresa May to work with him to “leave no stone unturned” in the search for a solution.
The PM said: “The trust wants to continue to provide paediatric services at Boston and every effort will be made to ensure that can continue.” In February, the hospital reduced the number of inpatient beds for kids to eight and suspended all planned children’s surgery. By July it will have just one full-time middle-grade paediatric doctor – eight are needed to provide a safe service. There are only 17 children’s nurses – 29 are needed. The trust has put four options on the table, with a decision due this month. Three of the choices would result in closures, with some wards shutting as early as June 4. Proposals refer to “temporary” closures, but insiders think if the axe falls, the services will never reopen.
Ward 8b was closed “temporarily” six years ago and is still mothballed today.
The nurse said: “If the trust can’t recruit now with the wards open, how will they be able to persuade people to join when they are closed?”
More than 40,000 nursing posts are unfilled in England with 160,000 nurses quitting in the past five years. Just 43% of junior doctors, the lowest ever, go on to be GPs or specialists after graduating.
Tough working conditions and poor pay as a result of Tory rule are believed to be behind the problems.
Thousands of babies and children will be affected every year MUM ALISON MARRIOTT ON HER FEARS ABOUT HOSPITAL