Monday, December 24, 2007

NATS FACING BOTH WAYS ON HEALTH ONE WAY RIGHT AND THE OTHER WRONG.

The Scottish Govt. proposes to move children's specialist cancer services in Aberdeen to Glasgow and Edinburgh. Their reason for this is that the proposed new venues have greater expertise and more state of the art facilities, as well as more experienced medical professionals.

None of this is a slight on Aberdeen or the medical people who work there, they do a fine job and will continue to do so. There has been a predictable hostile reaction from some quarters, MP's and MSP's have been lining up to condemn services being taken away from 'their areas' I believe that this is too important to play politics with.

If, god forbid you have a child with cancer and you have a choice of having your son or daughter treated in a hospital with the highest level of experience and the best facilities, or the hospital in your own area what would you do ? it's a bloody stupid question isn't it ? are there parents out there who would not move heaven and earth to get the very best that is available, I don't think there are, and politicians should start looking at this from that angle not from concerns about votes.

By contrast the Govt. and in particular Nicola Sturgeon have got a similar situation wrong by doing the opposite to what they are proposing for Aberdeen, this is for Vale of Leven Hospital.
Medical professionals have come down on the side of A&E moving to Paisley for exactly the same reason as they are advocating moving children's cancer services from Aberdeen to the central belt only this time Ms. Sturgeon has been trapped by her own populist election promises.

She deliberately portrayed the SNP as the saviours of hospitals and stated that she would save anything under threat. She now has a situation at Vale of Leven where senior doctors are telling her that they will shortly not be prepared to take responsibility for A&E results at the hospital.

They advocate moving the unit to Paisley and she does not have the courage to do the right thing and take their advice. If she continues to hide on this and continues down the populist route she is not fit to be Health Minister. This is too important for populism it's time for her to remove the 'Janus face'.

6 comments:

The Incorrigible Plagiarist said...

As the Erskine bridge was once again closed due to storms, the people of the Vale of Leven can once again be thankful that the Scottish electorate returned a government committed to serving their best interests, rather than one slavishly following a Centralising ideology or the 'instincts' of political dinosaurs.

Trying to compare the needs of patients diagnosed with a serious condition such as cancer with those requiring first line emergency assistance in A&E shows the depths to which you will stoop to try to score political points, without paying due consideration to the wants and needs of the local population.

Incidentally, the BMJ published the following in response to concerns about centralising A&E services:


Conclusion: Increased journey distance to hospital appears to be associated with increased risk of mortality. Our data suggest that a 10-km increase in straight-line distance is associated with around a 1% absolute increase in mortality.

Cllr Terry Kelly said...

(The Incorrigible Plagiarist) 08:49 - None of the above means anything when you consider that the proposals are being made by the medical profession.
How would you explain to someone that a loved one might have survived if he/she had had the better facilities available at Paisley.
That’s the same argument that you are using only you are having it with medical experts not me, your position is shameful.

To go against medical advice because of populist posturing is just about as bad as it gets, that’s what Sturgeon and the SNP are guilty of.

The Incorrigible Plagiarist said...

Clearly you fail to appreciate the difference between a health board and the medical profession.

May I say that admire your ability to ignore the Geographical realities of a journey from Alexandria to Paisley, particularly in stormy weather, in order to stick to your centralising dogma.

Here is my link to the evidence presented by the 'medical profession' that increased journey time to hospital does indeed increase the mortality rates in sick people.

http://emj.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/24/9/665

Feel free to follow any of the associated stories.

As for this:

How would you explain to someone that a loved one might have survived if he/she had had the better facilities available at Paisley.


Sigh! Are you really this stupid?

The argument is that the first line of treatment has to be immediate and close (local). The evidence is that unnecessary long ambulance trips causes increased deaths. The Geographical realities are that the trip from Alexandria to Paisley is not always easy to undertake.

If, through years of Labour neglect, the facilities in the Vale are not what they should be, then perhaps that could be addressed rather than simply moving to alternative facilities?

Try thinking about the people instead of the politics for a change.

Cllr Terry Kelly said...

(The Incorrigible Plagiarist) 09/01/08 -

I’ve already dealt with this so I will confine myself to saying this.

“Try thinking about the people instead of the politics for a change.”

When a politician makes promises to voters about keeping their hospital open in the face of advice from the medical profession (Sturgeon) that is the one who is putting votes before people’s health.

The Incorrigible Plagiarist said...


I’ve already dealt with this so I will confine myself to saying this.


You haven't dealt with anything. You've regurgitated a fallacy in the hope that some of the mud you're slinging at Nicola sturgeon will stick, at the expense of your own credibility... I know, I make myself laugh sometimes!

The academy of medical Royal colleges have backed the Sheffield study which said that closing local A&E's would cost more lives.

The medical profession have in fact stated the exact oposite from that which you are claiming. You are wrong, because you haven't done any research into the subject but continue to spout out the findings of a now debunked, government-commissioned report which supports your "centralise everything, left wing instincts".

If you don't want to follow the already supplied links, google such luminaries as Professor Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal colleg of Physicians, Jim Wardrope, president of the college of emergency medicine, and try to understand what they are saying...

Cllr Terry Kelly said...

(The Incorrigible Plagiarist) 10/01/08 -

You can go over what you are saying as often as you like, the fact is that the SNP gave people promises to get votes not to improve their medical provision.

These proposals were put there knowing that they would likely cost us votes and we still supported them.

Not something I’ve ever seen the SNP doing.