CONTROVERSY continues to rage around plans to move maternity and children’s services from Shrewsbury to Telford.
Plans to combine services offered by Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford have met with cries of protest from the people of Powys.
“The intention is to amalgamate the services onto one site for the people of Shropshire, and to keep the services in Shropshire. The unfortunate part about it is that it actually will have a huge impact on Welsh patients.” said John Howard, Chief Officer of Montgomeryshire Community Health Council.
“If you think that Llanidloes to Telford is 65 miles, the travel time then is an hour. It means that the ambulance is not able to be used again in Mid Wales until it gets back into Mid Wales, and that could be anything up to two hours. It’s not really been thought through, I think, from a Welsh perspective.”
An online petition has been started by Helen Jervis a mother of three who’s children have been treated at Shrewsbury, and has attracted thousands of signatures.
“I think it’s going to put lives at risk,” she said “because there’s people from Welshpool, Newtown and Machynlleth travelling to Shrewsbury, so if you’ve got that extra 30 minutes drive to Telford...
“I mean some babies and some children just about make it to Shrewsbury, but I think Telford’s just crazy.”
She was also concerned about the problems of visiting mothers and children, who may be in hospital for a long time, at such a long distance away.
Helen plans to present to petition to the Welsh Assembly. Elsewhere, Daniel Kawczynski, MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham, has raised the issue in Parliament.
Adam Cairns, Chief Executive of the Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust encouraged people to speak up in the consultation process, but warned that the problems facing the Shrewsbury and Telford hospitals would not simply go away:
“Everyone agrees that we can’t go on with two small in-patient facilities, we won’t have enough doctors into the very near future to cover both facilities and therefore we have to bring them together onto one site.
“We also need to think through the implications of the building we have here which houses the maternity and paediatric service, which is in a very poor condition. We need to get out of that building and we can achieve a solution for that service if we move that to Telford.”
The plan is that Telford will become the centre for treating children and pregnancies with complications.
Meanwhile Shrewsbury will be the centre for acute surgery and major trauma (eg. road traffic accidents) and specialise in such things as vascular and gastro-intestinal surgery.
“Women will still be able to have their babies in Shrewsbury, if they’re a low risk pregnancy and if that’s what they choose. But what we’re trying to do here is ensure that we keep these services in the county and without change there are very real risks that some of the services that we provide, we will lose from the county.
"I’m very fearful that if we don’t find a solution to some of these problems... then we’re going to find ourselves in a situation where we’re having to explain to the public why some of the services that we now provide are not provided in the county.”
John Howard warned that the changes might mean Welsh patients - about 11 per cent of the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital’s custom, would have to go elsewhere.
“I think we as Welsh people and users of the NHS must make our voices known.” he said.
* Public meetings are being held at Llanidloes Community Centre (February 18), Welshpool Royal Oak Hospital (February 23) and Newtown Elephant and Castle (February 24). The consultation document with the proposed plans can be accessed at www.ournhsinshropshireandtelford.nhs.uk