'Heavy price' of sick kids care cut

Published on Thursday 20 December 2007 09:47

HEALTH Secretary Nicola Sturgeon was today warned that plans to downgrade vital services at the Sick Kids would be "disastrous and calamitous" for patients.

She was also told that pressing ahead with the proposal would be "centralisation gone mad", as concerns about the threat to its future continued to grow.

The Scottish Government is considering a recommendation to downgrade paediatric cancer and brain surgery services at the Sick Kids in order to centralise them in Glasgow.

But today Dr David Barr, a former consultant paediatrician at the children's hospital, warned patients would pay a heavy price if the plans went ahead.

"The Sick Kids takes children, not just from Edinburgh, but from the Lothians, Fife and the Borders," he said. "For them there are medical issues with travelling to Glasgow for specialist care.

"Just screening and testing – if that's all that the Sick Kids is going to be in the future – it's disastrous and calamitous."

Children with complicated brain tumours, for instance, would face long spells in hospital in Glasgow, with their families forced to travel back and forth.

Dr Barr said downgrading the services would also seriously damage the training which junior doctors would receive in Edinburgh.

"It would diminish the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary as a training hospital. Trainees have to be exposed to a variety of things.

"If half the specialisms are not represented here they are not getting adequate training."

He added: "With cardiology, renology, cancer services, neurology you would have a centre of excellence in Glasgow. But that would come at a price and that price would be the downgrading of the Sick Kids in Edinburgh."

His fears were echoed by Edinburgh Pentlands MSP David McLetchie.

Mr McLetchie said: "There has been great stress placed on the importance of local services serving people in Scotland.

"It is important sick children have their families with them to give support. This centralising will only make that more difficult.

"We need specialist centres plural and the present situation of one in the west, one in the east, and one in the north, seems reasonable. To concentrate on one area would be centralisation gone mad.

"What Parliament has done to date is save accident and emergency in Ayr and Lanarkshire by opposing centralisation. This flies in the face of that for a very vulnerable group of patients."

East Lothian MSP Iain Gray said it would be ridiculous if the planned new Sick Kids hospital at Little France opens with less services than the current one.

"I would be very concerned if parents from East Lothian found themselves having to take their children all the way to Glasgow for treatment, or to visit them, he said. "It would seem perverse if a new children's hospital provided fewer services than the existing one."

Ms Sturgeon is currently considering two options on the future of children's cancer services across Scotland.

One would see services continue as normal in Edinburgh and Glasgow, with only those in Aberdeen being downgraded.

The second would see Edinburgh's paediatric cancer services downgraded, along with those in Aberdeen, in favour of a single specialist unit in Glasgow.

That would mean losing services, including brain tumour treatment, early trials of new drugs and academic training.

The future of brain surgery services will be the subject of a second report to the Government.

However, the Government is understood to be looking to cut the number of specialist units across Scotland from four to one or two.

Glasgow is thought to be the front runner for retaining services.

The Government has stressed it has made no final decision and its priority will be ensuring children receive the best treatment.

NHS Lothian has said it is awaiting the Government's decision and is hopeful the new Sick Kids Hospital will contain the same expertise and range of treatments as the present one.

We're lucky Kirsty was treated in Capital

WHEN Kirsty Harrison's unusual behaviour prompted her parents to take her to the doctors, they had no idea what was in store for them and their 11-year-old daughter.

She had started to worry teachers by falling asleep in class, wandering out of lessons without warning, and suffering severe headaches.

The Penicuik youngster's GP told the family to go straight to hospital, where an MRI scan revealed a brain tumour. It was untreatable, so doctors at the Sick Kids performed a rare treatment to drain away fluid and ease the pressure on the brain. The tumour is still there but, thanks to the treatment, so is Kirsty, now 17.

Her mother Jenny, 52, from Penicuik, said: "We were very lucky that Kirsty could be treated at the Sick Kids. I am concerned about the families who have to go through what we've done having to go to Glasgow, where the children will not get as many visitors."

Kirsty, who wants to train to be a paramedic, said: "The staff at the Sick Kids always cheered me up."

Maintaining services in city 'is essential'THE chairman of the Sick Kids Friends Foundation today said it was "essential" important services for children in and around Edinburgh be maintained.

Professor Graeme Millar, former chairman of the Edinburgh Sick Children's NHS Trust, urged health chiefs to decide quickly on the future of the services.

He said Scottish health secretary Nicola Sturgeon's decision will be key to how the new Sick Kids Hospital is developed in Little France.

"It is essential to children here and in the outlying areas, which the hospital covers, that the most important services be maintained and provided in the best possible way," he said.

"It is not our remit to decide how children's health services should be delivered. We will have to wait to see the final results of the report. We are here to provide enhancement to these services, in terms of comforts, equipment, facilities, research and training."

"It is, however, important that these decisions are outlined soon, as there is a clear need to know what will be provided at the new children's hospital, which is currently being planned to serve future generations of sick children."

The Sick Kids Friends Foundation was launched in 1992 and has helped fund a family support centre, CT scanner, gamma camera, a clinical skills centre, parents accommodation, operating theatre equipment, sensory gardens at Calareidh and Sunndach, respite homes for children with complex nursing needs and, most recently, a drop in centre at the Sick Kids.