Maternity campaign: Health bosses quizzed at public meeting
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Hundreds of campaigners and activists turned out for what could
be the final chance to say no to plans to cut maternity and
children's services at Maidstone Hospital.
Hospital bosses want to centralise the services at the new
Pembury Hospital when it opens next year. Maidstone would be left
with a small midwifery unit.
Opponents to the plan include GPs, politicans, mums and
mums-to-be across Maidstone.
They turned out in force at Maidstone Leisure Centre tonight for
a meeting called by local members of Kent County Council's
health scrutiny committee.
The intention was to launch a final demonstration of the level
of opposition to the plans.
The hospital says centralising the services will ensure the
highest quality care and will enable it to recruit top medical
staff.
We will be updating this page through the evening with the
latest news from the meeting. Refresh this page for the latest
updates.
6.45pm - It's already been a big week in the
campaign to save maternity and children's services at Maidstone
Hospital. Maidstone MP Helen Grant (Con), asking a question in the
House of Commons, was told by health secretary Andrew Lansley that
the support of GPs is essential for any health reconfiguration plan
to go ahead. GPs here overwhelmingly oppose the proposed move. That
has given fresh hope that the services can be saved, and is
expected to be one of the key issues for debate tonight.
7pm - Before the meeting even begins there is a
buzz in the hall, as news spreads of the resignation of NHS West
Kent chief executive Steve Phoenix, the man running the
consultation into the plans to move maternity and children's
services from Maidstone. He has taken a senior job at the Strategic
Health Authority.
7.25pm - Sue Webb of the Strategic Health
Authority tells the crowd that the government has already said
unequivocally that the "current proposals should proceed". "We are
not reviewing it, nor have we been asked to," she says.
7.30pm - The Strategic Health Authority will be
reporting back to health secretary Andrew Lansley at the end of the
month. Sue Webb: "When we report we will reflect the full breadth
of the views of the local population. We want to be absolutely sure
the NHS has listened to you."
7.35pm - James Thallon, a GP based in Tunbridge
Wells and spokesman for NHS West Kent, asks the audience if it is
"really credible" that health bosses would put forward proposals
that would put people at risk. Heckling from the crowd, including
some GPs, with cries of "yes it is".
7.35pm - James Thallon: "Pembury will be a
genuinely state of the art hospital". More heckling - "How will we
get there?"
7.45pm - Apologies - updates are slow because
there is no wifi access in Mote Hall.
7.50pm - Maidstone and the Weald MP Helen Grant
(Con) gets several ovations with an empassioned speech. "Our
community has spoken loud and clear. Patients say no. Borough and
county councillors say no. I, as a local resident and mother of
two, say no. And 97 per cent of our GPs say no."
7.55pm - Helen Grant: "Choice, we are told by
the trust, will be available at a midwifery unit with six beds or
by travelling to Pembury, Ashford, Medway or Dartford. Mothers with
complications will not have a local choice."
7.55pm - Helen Grant: GPs say "journey times
over bad rural roads are unacceptable" to Pembury.
7.55pm - Helen Grant: Andrew Lansley has said
yes to Pembury. But he will not decide on Maidstone's maternity
unit until the end of the month.
8pm - GP and British Medical
Association spokesman Paul Hobday says it is "Alice in
Wonderland fantasy" to suggest that cutting services will improve
patient care. Says it is a plan devised by the "Mad Hatter".
8pm - Paul Hobday: "We have lost emergency
surgery, orthopedics, gynaecology - now it is maternity and
pediatrics. A&E will be next. No hospital can lose such a basic
service as pediatrics and retain an A&E."
8.05pm - Paul Hobday: "The better-off Tunbridge
Wells patients will have a state of the art consultant-led
maternity unit while the population of Maidstone will give birth in
a Portacabin."
8.20pm - Debate opens to the floor. The main
concern is about travel times from Pembury to Maidstone - hold-ups
at Colts Hill can make it a longer journey than its 15 miles would
suggest. Darren Reynolds, a paramedic from South East Coast
Ambulance Trust, says that times quoted for hospital transfers are
averages, which "anyone can find on Google Maps".
8.20pm - He says the average journey times is
24 minutes. Fastest is 18 minutes, longest is 30 minutes. A normal
car would do the journey in 30 to 40 minutes, he says.
8.25pm - Cllr Gary Cook of Kent County Council
says he drove the route personally. Admitting to speeding when he
could to simulate an ambulance on blue lights, he says a "perfect
run" took 32 minutes.
8.25pm - A GP asks whether consultants who live
in Maidstone would be held personally responsible if they cannot
get to Pembury in time to deal with a neonatal emergency. The
response is that all consultants must live within 30 minutes of
Pembury, or stay within 30 minutes whenever they are on call.
8.30pm - A sharp-witted audience member asks
whether Maidstone is 30 minutes from Pembury for a consultant.
Maidstone Hospital is within the radius, says the trust, but anyone
living to the east of the hospital is not.
8.35pm - Cllr Annabelle Blackmore (Con), of
Maidstone council, says we are being "hoodwinked" by journey times.
The real measure is the transfer time, she says, which is from the
point that the ambulance is first called. She suggests transfers
would take closer to an hour.
8.40pm - James Thallon says GPs are not
unanimously against the plan. He quotes a Yalding GP ("Yalding is
near Maidstone," he says) who says that centralising services at
Pembury "is the only option". Paul Hobday counters that 97 per cent
of GPs oppose the plan.
8.45pm - Richard Hodges, a former chairman of
the Maidstone Community Health Council, says that 25 years ago
Maidstone was promised a general hospital with all the facilities
you would expect. That is being dismantled, he claims.
9.15pm - A mother who says she is clinically
trained challenges Dr Wilson Bolsover, a consultant paediatrician
representing the trust, on his earlier claim that moving
maternity services to Pembury would not directly result in a mother
or child losing their life. She says it is impossible to make such
a "sweeping statement" as fact.
9.15pm - Dr Bolsover says midwifery units are
safe but dodges repeated questions on what happens when an
apparently regular birth goes wrong at the last minute. The
exchange ends with him admitting that he "would not choose to use
the midwifery unit" but that every mother-to-be must make the
choice that is best for them.
9.30pm - A series of mothers take the
microphone to praise their experiences in Maidstone's
maternity unit. Many make the point that Maidstone was promised the
services of a full general hospital 25 years ago. One says
that families move to the area because it has a full maternity
unit. Cllr Paulina Stockell (Con), of Kent County Council and
Maidstone council, says the changes will hit poorer families in
Shepway and Park Wood the hardest, because they will face the
longest, hardest journeys.
9.35pm - James Thallon admits that the
downside of the plan is that Maidstone will no longer have a
maternity unit, but says that centralising the service will improve
the quality on offer to all women and children. The argument
returns to how difficult it will be to travel to Pembury from
Maidstone.
9.40pm - Cllr Dan Daley (Lib Dem), of Maidstone
council, asks whether Maidstone's maternity unit would have a long
term future even if it is saved now. Would keeping it running cause
a long-term financial problem? Hospital chief executive Glenn
Douglas says the question requires a "crystal ball" but says the
worst scenario imagined by the trust would be a sudden, unplanned
closure of the maternity unit because of financial difficulties. He
says a planned closure now will be better for families.
9.40pm - Cllr Daley then asks about bus
services. A KCC transport expert admits that while bus travel to
Maidstone Hospital is currently good, work on improving links
between Maidstone and Pembury has been difficult. The service would
be "half hourly at best" and would not run on Sundays or late in
the evenings, he says.
9.45pm - We're wrapping up. A midwife says that
while it is important that GPs are listened to, midwives' views
should also be taken into account. She says many, but not all,
agree with the proposed changes to maternity services.
10pm - It ends with a show of hands. The vast
majority of the audience say they oppose the plan to move maternity
and children's services to Pembury.
Thursday, September 09 2010
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