Hospitals

Like those rubberneckers passing a motorway pile up, I find myself compelled to visit the carnage that is, Paisley town councillor, Terry Kelly's blog site. Unashamed to spout his drivel on any subject, he's one of the reasons I've grown to loathe the Labour party in Scotland, and probably one of the reasons why, what should be a thriving town on the outskirts of Glasgow with it's own International airport, seems to have descended into the depressingly run-down state that you'll find it in these days.

Anyway, like a dog returning to it's vomit Terry often returns to the subjects of hospitals and how they should all be centralised, in Paisley apparently! Well, fair enough, that's one view, not shared by the BMA or the people of Scotland, but it's a view. Before the last election the SNP told us that it wasn't their view and they would not be closing the Monklands or Ayr A&E units Labour had earmarked for closure - and so it came to pass, neither unit has closed.

Here's how I see it. We need local hospitals.

In the case of A&E, it is well recognised that there is a golden hour in which seriously injured patients must be treated. If we're serious about looking after seriously injured accident victims then we can't be centralising A&E resources, requiring people to make unnecessarily long ambulance trips before receiving the expert care they need. Never mind the fact that our intemperate climate often causes bridges to be closed and the lack of infrastructure makes getting anywhere quickly in rush hour or bad weather, almost impossible. Don't even think about the weakness this presents to the terrorist...

In the case of maternity care, we shouldn't be asking mothers late in term to undertake longer journeys than are necessary and to be further from their families than need be. The BMA well understand the minimum requirements for a maternity unit and as we generally have more than a few months notice of impending births, there's absolutely no reason why we can't maintain efficient maternity units strategically round the country. I find that I agree with these mums, who might know a thing or too about it.

For these reasons I applaud Nicola Sturgeon's stance in asking the health boards to think again and for maintaining existing facilities. Let's see them all brought up to 21st Century standards and maintained, rather than allowed to run-down for political expediency (yes, I'm blaming 50 years of Labour rule for the state of our hospitals, just in case you were wondering - I do suspect that much of it is down to Labour's fear of asking Unions to actually do their job well, so allowing a building to decay with the prospect of that justifying a new investment is the path of least resistance for them.)