A COUPLE who owe the life of their 17-week premature baby to Burnley General Hospital staff – and two prominent councillors – have backed the Lancashire Telegraph’s fight to prevent several key medical services from being lost to East Lancashire.
Neonatal intensive care, part of the £32million Lancashire Women and Newborn Centre, which was only unveiled in November 2010, is among the seven disciplines under review.
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For the parents of Jordan James McCormack, who was born at the centre’s neonatal intensive care unit around four months early, weighing just 22 ounces, there is no question which way NHS bosses should jump.
His father Adrian, 34, from Accrington, said: “This unit was life-saving for us and Jordan wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for them.
“I can’t praise them highly enough, the staff were just brilliant.
“Having the unit in Burnley made things so much easier for us during a reallydifficult time.
“He has had to have an operation in Manchester and Liverpool and getting to them was really difficult. I think it’s vital we keep these services and I back the campaign 100 per cent.”
Adrian and partner Lorraine Flanagan were told that the survival chances for Jordan, born in September 2013, were “slim at best”.
But it was the expertise of the staff at East Lancshire’s NICU – and services for pancreatic cancer, liver and pancreatic conditions, HIV, respiratory and severe asthma, complex vascular complaints and complex disability – which our campaign is aiming to preserve.
And the weight of top-level support among political and community leaders across the area is growing, ahead of a regional review by NHS England.
Coun Kate Hollern, leader of Blackburn with Darwen Council, said: “I fully support this campaign and I am pleased the Lancashire Telegraph is taking this issue up.
“We don’t want to lose any of these important services from our area. I will be seeing what I can do to make sure families do not face travelling large distances to get to appointments when at the moment they are on their doorsteps. These plans need to be stopped.”
Cllr Gladys Sandiford, a retired midwife who represents Haslingden’s Greenfield ward, is “deploring” yet another health service shake-up, just a few years after several services across Blackburn and Burnley were reorgansed as part of the controversial Meeting Patients Needs programme.
“Every time we have another reconfiguration it is the most vulnerable and poorest members of society that are worst hit,” said Cllr Sandiford.
“They are the ones who cannot just jump in a car and get from A to B, or even get a bus, which the county council are looking to cut back on. And it’s not just patients - how are people going to get to the likes of Oldham and Salford for visting unless they have their own transport.
“We should be saying ‘no more’ to losing any other services in East Lancashire.”
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