Underfunding healthcare for babies and children

[irreplaceable]

I've just read my first MN newsletter, and the item that stood out to me was a Guardian report www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/jan/03/babies-health-warning-funding-crisis about a funding crisis threatening research into conditions affecting babies and children.

"Paediatricians from prominent hospitals, including Great Ormond Street and the Royal Marsden in London and "Jimmy's" ? St James's Hospital in Leeds, accused the government of failing to fund its "fair share" of research."

It interests me because I've started a petition on the No. 10 website about underfunding of neonatal services -see www.signitgordon.org

What I just don't understand is why has nobody else commented on it here already? I've had a few responses to my posts about the Government's refusal to provide the money a DOH-appointed taskforce says is needed for neonatal services, and I just don't get it.

Thousands upon thousands take an interest in childcare vouchers, hundreds in bus ads, but denying babies and children nursing and funding that might save and prolong lives, hardly anybody seems to notice or care!

I just don't get it.

As a mother who had three "totally normal" healthy pregnancies , I didn't understand the importance of neonatal services having babies was the one thing I was good at ,
then i fell pregnant with my twins , everything was going really as both , more morning sickness but apparently I ocould expect them slightly early with them being twins and my four pregnancy but everything was fine until 24 weeks when I went into prem labour and and gave birth to them weighing 1 lb 8 oz and 1 lb 10 oz .. we as a family spent six months them living the neonatal unit lifestyle , juggling , home and work comittments to be with them as many hours of the day as possible , we got to know the nurses and doctors and the shortfalls in the neonatal service first hand, I had to have my babies in a hospital 55 miles away from my home town because they didn't have the finding for the care my twins needed at my local hospital. so I would spend 3 hours out for the precious time i could have had with my babies in motor way traffic every day instead of the five minute drive from my house to my local hospital .

Sorry, please ignore my post, I'm going to ask for it to be removed and rake a bit of a break!

I have yet to hear a hospital doctor say their speciality has enough funding. Would your reaction be the same if it was specialists in older people or mental health saying this?

If, after criticism by the National Audit Office, the Dept of Health had commissioned a year-long investigation, led by the Medical Director of the NHS, of care of the elderly and found it substandard it would have been a national scandal. Joan Bakewell would have chained herself to the rails outside Parliament.

Most newspapers didn't cover the release of the report. Today, which seems to have a hotline to the Alzheimers Society, only briefly mentioned it.

Imagine if 80 yr-olds were denied 1:1 care?

Yet it's ok if you're 8 days old and it might make the difference between you leaving hospital in your mum's arms or in a coffin.

Bump this. My friend recently gave birth at 31 weeks and has been through such a tough time. The care she and her ds are receiving has been amazing but its really sad to think some are not so lucky to receive such care.

I know that lots of areas of the NHS need more support but this is after all Mumsnet.

Please think about signing the petition.

80yrs old are frequently denied 1:1 care.

But guidelines say they should get it. That is not so with babies.

And what's the difference between dying at 8 days old and at 80? Let me count the ways...

one of my dcs spent 5 weeks in special care. one of my grandparents recently spent 7 months hospitalised after a fall.
please don't tell me you are really attempting to turn this thread into a debate over whose life is more valuable?

i know who received the most care in hospital - the 6yo child who is currently bombing around my living room. sadly, the grandparent is no longer with us.

underfunding is prevalent in all areas.

please don't make this into anything else.

The other day a child of two was pulled out alive from rubble in Haiti. Doubtless other people were pulled out that day too, but picture editors instinctively knew that the sight of a young child was the more uplifting. Why? Because that child had so many more years he could live (even in Haiti).

Both your child and grandparent had a right to care thousands of babies are denied. I think this is deeply unfair, as does Bliss which is "leading a coalition of groups who agree and are calling upon the Government ..to address this situation. These groups are The Royal College of Nursing, The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, The Neonatal Nurses Association, The British Association of Perinatal Medicine, The Scottish Neonatal Nurses Group, The Scottish Neonatal Consultants Group and Tinylife, the Premature Baby Charity for Northern Ireland."

My son never got the chance to bomb around my living room, or to grow old, which is why I'm prepared to back all these groups by trying to mobilise parent power. Even if it means having to take unpleasant comments from people on here.

I must add, too, that my Dutch grandmother was euthanased by her doctors. Horrific as that was, it was not the same as my child dying in your arms. It was not.