Health secretary accused of U-turn on hospital cutbacks

 

Read the Guardian article here.

So were all the promises we were given before May just cheap electioneering ? Didn’t the politicians claim they wanted to get their integrity back after the expenses scandal? Closing the Whittington A&E  -despite promising to keep it open – is not going to help with this, is it?

To make matters worse  the next meeting of the North Central London NHS Board on 12th August will not be held in public. Why do you think that is?

How stupid they think we are? It is an absolute outrage and I will continue to monitor the situation and report back here.

New threat to the Whittington

The Defend the Whittington Hospital Coalition reports new threats to the Whittington. North Central London NHS have re-opened the possibility of closing the Accident and Emergency, Trauma, Pediatrics and Maternity Department at the Whittington Hospital.

I can’t believe it. We have been given repeated re-assurances that the Whittington would be spared – before AND after the election. Absolutely outrageous !

Protest at the Department of Health

TODAY @ 1 pm

Richmond House, 79 Whitehall, London SW1A 2NS

Read the story in Ham&High here

All’s well that ends well

Thank you so much to everyone for reading my blog. And thank you for all your kind comments and e-mails.

There is only one thing I would like to say to everyone:

DON’T WORRY !

To my concerned friends:

The baby and me are fine now and are enjoying the sunshine. Life is great. I wouldn’t be blogging about it if I wouldn’t feel that I have come out at the other end – healthy, happy and well

To those who are currently pregnant or thinking of having children:

Just because it happened to me doesn’t mean it will happen to you. Indeed an experience like mine is unusual.  So don’t panic. But do prepare as much as you can before the birth. I would especially recommend breathing.  My antenatal yoga teacher always used to say: “You wouldn’t run a marathon without preparing for it properly – so why would you give birth without preparing for it ?” Very wise words in my opinion.

To those who have been through a similar ordeal as me:

Thanks a lot for sharing your experiences with me. It might sound strange but it really helped me to hear you talking about your birth experience. It really helps to keep things in perspective – after all: we’re all alive and have extremely cute babies 🙂

And to NHS North London bosses and other decision makers:

We told you so ! Local residents and parents have always argued that we need a local hospital with ALL the facilities in place and that this would save lives. And indeed it has saved my life. So in future I hope you’ll leave the Whittington well alone and people like me can get on with our lives and important tasks such as raising our children without having to worry wether or not our local A&E will still be there when we need it.

False Alarm

Let me start again where I left off (for those of you who can’t remember it was here). After blogging I went to bed and breathed through the contractions until about 1 am when they suddenly stopped. I was a bit surprised but figured that the best thing to do was to get some sleep. So I did.

 I woke up early. I was relatively calm – but only relatively. To keep it that way I went for a walk in my local park. It was quite strange because I would still get the odd contraction (maybe one every 30 minutes) so would have to stop in my tracks and breathe. I must have been an odd sight.

 On my way back I happened to bump into my midwife on her way to work. I was very pleased to see her and told her about my false alarm. She seemed very chilled about it all so I decided to try and be very chilled as well. I set off for my acupuncture appointment at the Whittington hoping it would help to set off the real thing.

 Before heading home I managed to squeeze in lunch with a friend in Archway. I still had the odd contraction and sometimes had to stop mid-sentence and breathe. All credit to my childless friend who took it all in his stride. Thanks mate! Other guys would have definitely freaked in this situation

My son

Apologies for the delay in blogging. I know that some of you have been regularly checking the blog for updates about the birth…and so far have been disappointed….but not anymore …I’m alive and blogging…..

My son was born on 22 May just before 5 am at the Whittington (yiipppehh !).

So that makes him three weeks old and one day today and as you would expect me to say: He is the cutest baby in the world. My partner and me are hopelessly in love with him.

As to the birth: I would love to say that it was a straight forward water birth but…eh….it wasn’t. The whole story will be too long to blog it in one post so I will break it down and blog it in little chapters over the next few days – for those of you who want to know the details.

For those of you who don’t need to know every detail ( I completely understand: I sometimes wish I would not know everything I know) all you need to know is this: The baby and I are well and thriving !

I will say two things with regards to this blog and the campaign to save the Whittington. At times it really felt as though fate told me: “So you think you are whittington mum? You ain’t seen anything yet !”

And indeed before the birth I hadn’t seen anything yet. All I had was a pretty box standard and relatively easy pregnancy and an excellent midwife looking after me. After the birth I can now well and truly declare myself to be whittington mum for two reasons:

1) You name the Whittington ward – I have been there: Birth Centre, Labour ward, post-natal ward, neo-natal unit and a couple of other places in the Whittington which aren’t “babies only”.

2) I can now honestly say that the Whittington indeed saved my life. More precisely the crash team from the A&E unit. So thank you very much, guys. Really very much obliged for saving my life. I truly appreciate the speed with which you “crashed in when I crashed out.”

So in a weird way I have proven my own point by my personal experience: You need a local hospital with ALL the facilities in place. A full labour ward plus A&E and other departments – if you do not have this people, like me, might end up paying with their lives.

But to my great joy the Whittington is safe, my baby is well and I am alive. So I hold it with Shakespeare on this one – All’s well that ends well.

39 weeks: The waiting game

I went to see my Whittington midwife yesterday. I was relieved to hear that everything is fine. The baby lies head down and generally seems very happy – inside. There’s no sign yet that he has any intention to be born for the moment.

As usual it was lovely to see my midwife and in particular hear her re-assuring words that everything is fine. I’ve got another appointment with her next Monday…but I sincerely hope that  it won’t be necessary and the baby will have been born by then…but no one knows what exactly will happen and so the waiting games begins….

except that I am of course not waiting around and are making the most of still being able to pop to the centre to meet friends for lunches and coffees…something tells me that this will be off the agenda very soon for a while 🙂

Letter by the head of midwifery at the Whittington

The head of midwifery and the General Manager of the Women and Children’s Services at the Whittington have written an open letter.

Click here to read it.

It is of course very re-assuring to read.  I have heard rumours that some GP’s have advised women not to choose the Whittington to give birth as it might be closed soon.  Firstly, the Whittington is much safer now than it was just a few weeks ago and Secondly, there’s no chance that anything at the Whittington will close within 9 months. This campaign has always been for the long-term future of the Whittington.

I am still not clear if the North Central London Strategy Plan 2010 – 2014 has been revised or not. In theory it should be changed as it still lists four options under which the 24-hour A&E at the Whittington would be closed, which would very likely affect the maternity services.

I’l try to  find out and report back on this blog.

A triumph of passion over penny-pinching means campaigners get their voices heard

 

Click here for an interesting article on the campaign victory in the Haringey Advertiser.

Lynne’s won !

While we don’t yet know what’s happening with our government there has been no change for us in Hornsey and Wood Green.

Our old MP is our new MP: Lynne Featherstone.

She has fought hard against the closure plans of the Whittington A&E and just a few days ago told me that “eternal vigilance” would be needed to ensure that the promises not to close the Whittington 24-hour A&E would be kept.

So once the dust has settled we’ll be looking to her to help monitor the situation and make sure that the Whittington is truly safe.

Just saw on BBC London news that Labour has won the Local Council election in Haringey.

I hope you’re voting today !

Just back from the polling station. I hope you’re voting, too.

People have actually e-mailed me to ask my advice on who to vote for. Just for the record: I’m not telling anyone how to vote – at least not in public 🙂

In terms of saving the Whittington A&E any of the four major parties will be fine as they have all promised to save it.

Quick reminder of who said what:

Conservative

Greens

Labour

Liberal Democrats

And yes – whoever gets elected: we’ll hold them to their promises !

In more general terms, all the parliamentary candidates for Hornsey and Wood Green, with the exception of one, have been living in the constituency for many years, which is always a good sign.

In terms of local elections: I hope you managed to scrutinize the candidates for your ward before making up your mind. I went to my local ward hustings, organised by my fabulous residents association, on Tuesday night. I was appalled by the poor quality of many of the local council candidates. Quite a number of them didn’t bother to show up. It was the only hustings for the ward they want to represent and they don’t show up two days before the election ? How often will we see them once they get elected then?

 Absolutely shocking.

Those who turned up put in a pretty poor performance on the panel – admittedly some were better than others but even the better ones said some pretty naive things. On the whole panel there was only one local candidate who was clearly more experienced, articulate, passionate and clued up about local issues than the rest of them.

I just hope whoever gets elected to represent our ward gets a grip and learns very, very quickly. We really need some intelligent, experienced and passionate people  to represent our diverse community.

Happy voting !