"West Cumbria proofing," is the concept expressed by Patricia Hewitt when she was Secretary of State for the Department of Trade and Industry. These words were cited by Copeland Council Leader, Elaine Woodburn, in a passionate assertion that, because of the geography and poor infrastructure of our area, two acute hospitals are indeed needed, as the Health Trust consultation has already concluded, and that maternity services are an essential provision of any acute hospital.

Her concern had been caused by a consultation paper issued by the North Cumbria Health Trust which included alternative proposals:

1) for an obstetrics department at both the WCH and the Cumberland Infirmary, and

2) for a midwifery led unit at the WCH and a obstetrics unit at Carlisle.

She warned that the prospect of mothers having to travel to Carlisle to give birth could not be tolerated. In other areas of the country where units have amalgamated and centralised there had been an increase in deaths of babies and of mothers because of the need to transfer to larger units, and quoted John Hutton MP, who had stated, as Health Minister, "There is no question whatsoever of services being downgraded. The quality of care that people look to the Whitehaven hospital to provide is not disappearing."

Egremont Today strongly supports both Elaine and our MP, Jamie Reed, who has spoken of his own family's debt to the maternity unit at West Cumberland Hospital and makes it absolutely clear that the maternity service within Copeland must be at least maintained, and indeed improved. We are concerned that in March we reported that, "The new hospital - will provide emergency services with an Intensive Treatment Unit and maternity and children’s services," (see our website, www.egremont-today.com) and now seem to be receiving a different message. It leaves us with a sense that we are walking in shifting sands.
However, we deeply regret personal attacks on named Health Trust managers. Local politicians should recognise that they are in the same position as civil servants and unable to defend themselves from political attack. They are grappling with extremely difficult problems and it is unfair to imagine either that they are engaged in a conspiracy to deprive West Cumbria of the services it needs or that a new set of managers would be able to deliver exactly what the West Cumbrian community demands.

We should recognise that the survival of our hospital depends on addressing the genuine problems of recruiting doctors and nurses to a hospital in the most remote region of England, and give Chief Executive for North Cumbria Acute Hospitals, Marie Burnham, credit for attempting to make the partnership work between the two acute hospitals managed by the Trust. The partnership demands that consultants are provided with a sufficient case load while still addressing the needs of our local population. It also demands that consultants employed by either of the hospitals should be expected to treat patients at West Cumberland as well as Carlisle. We find it hard to object to Miss Burnham's warning that "The alternative to management of change is default management, which simply means doing nothing until a situation is beyond help."
We should also avoid being deceived by the attractive myth that in the old days the local hospital gave the community everything it needed. It is worth reading the remarks of the late Dr Willey, also on our website, who tells us that "Ear Nose and Throat surgeon, Jack Page, operated in Carlisle, but swore that he would get to Whitehaven within 45 minutes in any emergency." It has been heroically served by doctors, nurses and other staff, but it has always found it desperately difficult to recruit consultants. Until quite recently, children had to go to Carlisle for tonsillectomy operations, and in 1985 a young Egremont woman who was choking had to be driven by ambulance to Carlisle for an emergency throat operation. There she had her gullet cut by an overworked surgeon and had to be transferred to Freeman Hospital in Newcastle for another operation and intensive care.

It is absolutely right to demand that all emergency services are retained here in West Cumbria, but mature political leaders should work constructively with managers to achieve a service, "characterised by investment, not by cuts, fair to everyone and personal to each of us." (Former Health Secretary, John Reid.)