Save Children's Heart Surgery at Leeds General Infirmary

[HeartMum1]

I want to ask you all for your help. You may have seen in the national and local press that a National Safe & Sustainability Review of Children's Heart Surgery in England has taken place. There are currently 11 Surgical Cardiac Centres in England and the review has stated that a number of these centres will need to close in order to create a smaller number of larger super-centres. The four options were released on 16th February 2011 with Leeds (Leeds General Infirmary) only appearing in one of the options. There is now a public consultation until 1st July 2011, with the final decision being made in October 2011.

Leeds General Infirmary has an outstanding level of cardiac care for children with a record of excellent clinical outcomes but could still face losing this service despite also being geographically in a very densely populated location with excellent travel links. If Leeds were to close, Yorkshire and Humberside children would have to travel long distances putting their lives at risk and putting their families under an even greater emotional and financial strain.

Please can you help support us by following the link below and signing and distributing the petition to get as many signatures as possible.

Online Petition

Paper Petition

PLEASE DON'T LET THEM TAKE AWAY A UNIT WHICH IS ALREADY PERFORMING TO THE STANDARDS THAT THEY ARE REQUIRING IN THE REVIEW AND ALSO SAVED THE LIFE OF MY DAUGHTER, AMELIE, ON MORE THAN ONE OCCASION.

For balance here is an article from Fergus Walsh at the BBC, which outlines the case for closure.

The need for surgery to be concentrated in fewer, bigger centres is supported by a huge range of organisations, among them: the Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery in Great Britain and Ireland, the British Congenital Cardiac Association, The Royal College of Surgeons, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the Paediatric Intensive Care Society and the Children's Heart Federation - an umbrella group of 20 charities which represent families.

I'd like to save Southampton for the same reasons, as it helped my son. They also serve the West Country as we had to go there from Cornwall when ds was a baby.

There are not enough paediatric heart surgeons in the UK to justify so many centres.

Asif Hassan, in Newcastle for example, is the only surgeon and is permanently on call.

They need to concentrate heart services so that there are more surgoens, and more support, at each centre. It makes a lot of sense, and is much safer for patients.

There are paediatric heart surgeons at Southampton - Dr Nanapragasm and Dr Wilson did ds and a friends dd. They treat loads of kids from Devon and Cornwall there every year and are superb.