There can be few families who owe more to those NHS staff than ours does.
My 10-year old grandson Kynan was hit by a car on the pelican crossing at Rutland Ave on 5th Feb, suffering life-threatening injuries. Were it not for the prompt action of paramedics and casualty staff, and their closeness to the scene, we could well have lost him. As it was, once stabilised in Casualty, he went into Intensive Care where they battled to keep him alive in a unit intended primarily for adults.
Two days later, on the edge of a coma, with the help of the consultant paediatrician, he was transferred by ambulance to Newcastle, where he went into an ITU solely for children, with his own nurse at a desk at the bottom of his bed. Once stable again, he was transferred to the children’s rehab unit, where, five days after the accident, he came round and spoke.
He was there five weeks, recovering from brain trauma, a paralysed arm and numerous cuts and massive abrasions. He was later taken to the RVI where they tested his arm and found it to have extensive nerve damage, normally requiring amputation. The plastic surgeon refused to follow this route, and referred the case to Leeds where a professor of brachial plexus surgery (the top man in the North for this injury) agreed to try to help him.
After consulting French and Chinese surgeons, he and his team carried out radical surgery, removing nerves from the back of both legs and the diaphragm, attaching one from one shoulder to the damaged one, across the throat; another between elbow and wrist in the damaged arm, and the third to join together other nerves.
Kynan is now badly scarred and will always be disabled to a certain extent, but has a chance now, to regain most of the use of his arm, rather than loosing it. All he wants to do is to return to play for Wath Brow Hornets again. NONE of this would have been possible without the skill, and dedication of a system that is the envy of the world.
Our NHS did not let my grandson down; it saved his life, brought him back from a near coma, nursed him to recovery, and then went on to find a surgical alternative to amputation, which took seven hours, and 21 hours of unconsciousness.
We found out exactly what is important and who cares. I remember a young WPC who stayed with him until the paramedics took over, and followed him to hospital, and then looked after us. She was back the next day in her own time to see how he was. She and her colleagues in the police were also caring professionals who handled us well. When they realised from the clothes that were cut off him, that he was Chelsea fan, they wrote to the club and obtained a pack of goodies for him, which they then gave him. They too, went that extra mile.
I’ve worked my way round most of these caring people thanking them for their efforts, from paramedic to surgeon, but for those I’ve missed – thank you all.
I now know that our NHS is the best, its staff are indeed angels of mercy, and I now fully realise how important it is to get it right with any new hospital. We have done it with the newer units at West Cumberland but we should be looking for that standard throughout, in any new facility.
I fully understand we can’t have all the facilities that Newcastle and Leeds have, and while you have an NHS that has so well cared for my grandson, we shouldn’t expect to have it all, but what we should expect, is that kind of system as of right.
We should have a fully equipped Casualty; an ITU that has children beds; and sufficient staff to maintain life until they can be transferred to a specialist unit. This is not a request – it is a demand. The people of this area have the same rights as any other; it may take longer to get to such units, but they are ours of right.
It’s our NHS – customers and staff alike, not some petty penny-pinching bureaucrat in an office in London or wherever, never more than a mile from such facilities.
Let’s get some money spent, on both staff and resources, remove the shackles of endless paperwork, and let our NHS staff do the jobs they are so dedicated to.