Hands off the Sick Kids

THE future of vital services at Edinburgh's famous Sick Kids hospital is under threat as a review of specialist children's services is carried out across Scotland.

The Scottish Government is considering a report which recommends cutting the number of specialist paediatric cancer centres in the country from three to either two or one.

With Glasgow the only city where services are guaranteed to continue, there is a very real threat to services at the Sick Kids in Edinburgh continuing in their current form.

The Government is also considering a similar centralisation of neurological services, which raises the prospect of a further downgrading of treatments offered at the Sick Kids.

Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon is expected to make a decision on the future of both these services in the spring.

Not only would the loss of these services impact directly on seriously-ill youngsters and their families, there are also significant concerns about the potential knock-on effects.

Medics fear that losing services would put the hospital on a downward spiral which could lead to it becoming little more than "satellite beds" for its counterpart in Glasgow.

If the Health Secretary does decide to downgrade the Sick Kids' cancer unit, patients would no longer receive certain services in Edinburgh, including brain-tumour treatment, academic training and early clinical trials of new drugs.

Some young patients, including children with serious brain tumours, would face long stays in Glasgow.

A downgrade of its neurological services would also mean that youngsters from across the region requiring brain surgery would have to travel for operations.

The proposals have provoked a storm of protests from medics, patients and their families, politicians and charities.

Hundreds have signed a protest petition started by patients' families which the Evening News is supporting.

A similar petition aiming to protect services in Aberdeen has attracted 25,000 signatures. That puts the pressure on campaigners in the Capital to demonstrate the level of feeling throughout the region about the threat to the Sick Kids.


How you can help

• sign the petition
• collect signatures from family, friends and work colleagues
• let us know where you will be collecting signatures
• volunteer to join the petitions team
• put up the Hands off the Sick Kids poster
• tell us your story if you have a special reason to be grateful to the Sick Kids

Copies of the petition can be downloaded by clicking HERE. You can tell us your stories, volunteer to join a petition team or have a poster sent out to you by calling our health reporter Gareth Rose on 0131-620 8753 or email [e-mail]..


Hospital consultants, charities, politicians, patients and their families have queued up to warn about the disastrous consequences of downgrading services at the Sick Kids.

Gail Newlands, of Ferniehill, whose son Ross, now 16, was treated at the Sick Kids after being diagnosed with a brain tumour: "If the treatment had been in Glasgow it would have been completely different. From the family's point of view, it would have been a nightmare."

Former Sick Kids consultant Dr William Uttley: "If we are not careful, in the future Edinburgh will become nothing more than satellite beds for Glasgow. This is foolish as figures show the population is moving eastwards and not westwards. Demographic changes are not being taken into account."

KT Tunstall, the 32-year-old singer, who grew up in St Andrews and recently visited the Sick Kids "It would be a nightmare for east-coast parents to have to go to Glasgow. The only way these things are bearable for families is if they can continue to have some sort of family life. If suddenly your child is a four-hour round trip away, that's just not possible."

Lothians Independent MSP Margo MacDonald: "It is vital that these services stay in Edinburgh. We have already been down this road with cardiac operations (which were axed at the Sick Kids], we know where it leads."

• Click here for more views on downgrading services at the Sick Kids