Children’s ward to close for the summer amid doctor shortage
HELEN MCARDLE
Around 3,000 children a year attend the children’s ward, with one-third of those requiring hospital admission.
No date has been given for the ward to fully re-open, with health chiefs simply saying they were committed to reinstating the service “as soon as possible after the summer”.
Jacquie Campbell, chief officer of acute services at NHS Lothian, said: “Despite our best efforts we have been unable to reliably secure the levels of staffing required overnight and at weekends to guarantee a safe service.
“If we don’t make changes now to the operating hours of the children’s ward, we run the risk of having to make an unplanned closure at a few hours’ notice, which would lead to the sudden diversion of patients. This reduction in opening hours is the safest option for children in West Lothian.”
Maternity and neonatal care at the hospital is not affected, and children will still be assessed and treated in the A&E department at night and weekends.
Outpatient appointments, tests, and minor day surgery will also continue as normal on weekdays during 8am and 8pm.
The unit closed to inpatients for six weeks in 2015 due to staff shortages and in June 2016 the health board embarked on a national and international recruitment drive to hire an extra eight consultant paediatricians. It has filled five posts but remains three short.
Neil Findlay, Labour MSP for Lothian, said he would fight the closure, adding: “The SNP claimed the safety and staffing issues at St John’s would be resolved.
“Now yet again we are told that the ward will close to inpatients for an indefinite period over the summer. Local residents will rightly be furious at the downgrading of services that will leave them and their sick child having to make a 20-mile trip to Edinburgh.”
Health Secretary Shona Robison said the Scottish Government was working with NHS Lothian “to ensure the services on offer at the St John’s in-patient paediatric ward remains safe and sustainable in the long-term”. She added that the temporary closure was “in the best interest of children and their families”.