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An Open Letter from
Mike Parris
Editor
Eastbourne Herald
Eastbourne
16th July 2007
Lives at Risk
Dear Sirs,
Before the Hands off the Conquest March took place along Hastings seafront last September, campaigners had to provide the Council with a risk assessment. Imagine my utter surprise when I read that councillors Scott, Lock, Pragnell, Finch and Daniel had voted for the PCT‘s Option 4. Have these councillors seen anything like a risk assessment on Option 4 or indeed any evidence on the safety of any options proposed by the PCT. Maybe they been drawn in by the PCT’s much quoted ‘Safer and Better’, may I remind them, they only have their word for it!!! Five weeks ago I requested a risk assessment for options 1-4 from the PCT. Having not received a reply after four weeks I emailed again, as, in my opinion, it is a straight forward question, but at the time of writing I still await an answer to this request.
Did these councillors not read the statement from the chief of the East Sussex Medical Council, saying that they did not believe that the proposals provide the level of safety they wish to see for their patients, and as such do not feel able to support any option in its present form.
I was recently forwarded by the RCOG a report from The Information Centre which provided NHS Statistics for 2005-6. In the summary of main findings it reported that 23.5% of deliveries were by caesarean section; more than half of these were emergency caesareans. By applying 11.75% emergency caesareans to the number of births at the DGH 2006/7 we arrive at a figure of 229. It must be remembered that with every case it is at least two lives at risk (mother and child) so the number must be doubled to 458.
The safety issue is paramount to the changes in maternity services and my real concern is that women with obstetric emergencies will be bounced about in the back of an ambulance under a blue light in one direction, with the risk of a slow journey back, under a wooden lid.
Yours sincerely
M J Parris
on behalf of the Hands Off The Conquest Committee
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