Are There No End To The Depths That Labour Will Sink To?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4227022/Unpopular-Jeremy-Corbyn-stays-away-Copeland.html

[Zacs-Master]

There won't Be many midwives voting Labour. Unless it's true, of course.

[cassa333]

No. Because they are desperate.

They have a leader only the trade unions and utter twanks voted in and front and back benchers fighting amongst themselves to put as much distance between themselves and him.

Desperate times call for desperate measures so a bit of 'your babies will die' rhetoric from the worset performing party is par for the course.

But hay, I don't mind because it means Labour will be kept out of ruining the country for a while yet.

[Gromit]

The Labour leaflet is quoting midwives and GPs. It is a local issue, and the claim of deaths has been aired on TV and the local paper. If it has been said by the local medical practitioners, then Labour are allowed to quote it.

http://www.itv.com/news/border/2016-08-10/midwives-warn-mothers-will-die-if-maternity-care-is-downgraded/

If the Conservative Government support closing this hospital, then Labour are obviously going to use that against them in their campaign. No dirty tricks or sinking to low depths, just Labour supporting the NHS, as they always do.

[Gromit]

The Labour Party are quoting from this Open Letter published by West Cumbria Midwives.

// Dear Mr. Eames

At the public consultations earlier this year you invited any midwives present at the meetings to voice their concerns. We would now like to do that through the We Need West Cumberland Hospital campaign group.

We cannot believe that you would remove consultant cover from WCH. Surely the lives of pregnant ladies are worth much more than a cost cutting exercise?

We are told that these cuts are for safety reasons. That we know is not true. We also know that:

• MOTHERS WILL DIE • BABIES WILL DIE • BABIES WILL BE BRAIN DAMAGED

• FAMILIES WILL BE TRAUMATISED

As midwives we would be unable to define anyone as “low risk” as we are unable to predict when complications will arise. Unfortunately these complications will not fit into any allocated time slots with medical care that you decide to give us (e.g. 0800 – 2000).

Transferring ladies in labour with complications will be catastrophic. How do we treat ladies who need urgent delivery such as:

• A crash caesarean• Shoulder dystocia • Haemorrhaging

These ladies need urgent intervention – not an ambulance transfer to CIC with a bed to bed transfer time of 1 hour and 40 minutes.

There is also the question regarding the transfer of patients to CIC. Who would take responsibility for the patient care en-route? Is it the ambulance service or the WCH?

We would deplore a situation where a single midwife has to care for a seriously ill lady/baby when they believed earlier medical care could have prevented this situation. Make no mistake, when this does happen the stress placed on the midwife and the policy maker whilst legal proceedings evolve will be enormous.

Will you have a retrieval team come from CIC with a doctor to meet and assist us en-route? Previously we had a flying squad for obstetric emergencies in the community. In the future it would appear all we will have is an ambulance transfer to CIC.

Workington maternity unit was closed many years ago as it was not deemed safe to transfer labouring ladies less than 10 miles away. Why now is it going to be acceptable to transfer them 40 miles with a bed to bed transfer of 1 hour and 40 minutes? This is a retrograde step.

We already live in a deprived area where some women struggle to find the bus fare to attend ANC at WCH. To ask them to go to CIC for ANC would be ludicrous and many will not attend because of the financial problems and time constraints with a journey time of at least two hours. Our peri-natal mortality rate will rise because of those problems. Our ambulance service is already over stretched and those changes will cause further strain to the service.

All midwives, who are also mothers, grandmothers or women of child bearing age and men with partners and families, are passionate about their jobs and passionate about their community. These potential changes to the maternity services would ruin many midwives lives and careers due to the stressful situation they would find themselves in on a daily basis whilst caring for women and babies. We are unable to stand back and be unaccountable by not voicing our concerns.

The amount of money that you will be paying out in litigation would be better spent on recruiting staff and making our hospital sustainable again. We all pay our taxes and are entitled to the same health care as everyone else in the UK. It would appear that we are to be denied proper health care whilst CIC continues to prosper and pay the debt on their PPI hospital which has been the downfall of WCH.

Historically judges sentenced people to death. Who will put their name forward for the Trust to do likewise?

PLEASE DO NOT DENY THE WOMEN OF WEST CUMBRIA A SAFE CHILDBIRTH. THEY NEED ACCESS TO SERVICES: OBSTETRICS IS AN ACUTE SERVICE WHICH NEEDS TO BE AVAILABLE 24/7 IN THIS AREA FOR OUR WOMEN, BABIES AND FAMILIES.

On behalf of the midwives in West Cumbria. //

[anotheoldgit]

Gromit

And if Labour wins this seat will,

• MOTHERS WILL NO LONGER DIE • BABIES WILL NOT DIE • BABIES WILL NOT BE BRAIN DAMAGED, AND • FAMILIES WILL NO LONGER BE TRAUMATISED?

[Gromit]

AOG

Labour are not promising eternal life for all Copeland residents.

But they are fighting the closure. And the closure will result in MORE deaths (if the medics are to be believed).

Keeping the maternity ward open will not result in NO deaths, but it will prevent ADDITIONAL deaths (alledgedly).

[Zacs-Master]

The midwives might just swing the vote then!

[youngmafbog]

Not got a lot to do at work today Gromit?

Personally I am not sure of the wisdom of this sort of electionering in this day and age. The vast majority of the electorate (from all sides) are sick to the back teeth of 'project Fears' using massive exaggeration.

[Gromit]

Zacs,
Hospital closures can be decisive in elections. Richard Taylor contested and won a seat in Wye Forest as the NHS candidate in 2001 and 2005.
Which is obviously why Labour are using the closure in West Cumbria as a way to discredit the Conservative candidate.

[ToraToraTora]

"Are There No End To The Depths That Labour Will Sink To?" - err no!