How far are your essential services from you?
Discussion
Major bugbear alert!
I'm not a father nor am I likely to be one soon, but it's a major bugbear of mine how far our major services are from us if me and my missus were to have one.
Background story: our county no longer has a proper hospital for births it is a midwife led unit and if any complications arise you will be ambulanced 50 miles away to a hospital with special baby care. The direct road from my house to that hospital is constantly plagued with either road works or accidents meaning if my mythical partner went into labour it's 40 minutes until she's in the care of a doctor at the very least.
That road has been closed a few times in the past years and stories are that 7 children have been born at the roadside.
What I'm asking is how far are your essential services from you? If my partner was to have a baby tomorrow I couldn't reliably say I'd take her 15 minutes to our local hospital, or reliably get to the proper hospital in any time less than 45 mins (mad to add nigh on every person I've spoken too has complained about this place too). What's your attitude/local situation!?
I'm not a father nor am I likely to be one soon, but it's a major bugbear of mine how far our major services are from us if me and my missus were to have one.
Background story: our county no longer has a proper hospital for births it is a midwife led unit and if any complications arise you will be ambulanced 50 miles away to a hospital with special baby care. The direct road from my house to that hospital is constantly plagued with either road works or accidents meaning if my mythical partner went into labour it's 40 minutes until she's in the care of a doctor at the very least.
That road has been closed a few times in the past years and stories are that 7 children have been born at the roadside.
What I'm asking is how far are your essential services from you? If my partner was to have a baby tomorrow I couldn't reliably say I'd take her 15 minutes to our local hospital, or reliably get to the proper hospital in any time less than 45 mins (mad to add nigh on every person I've spoken too has complained about this place too). What's your attitude/local situation!?
Edited by briangriffin on Monday 27th March 07:22
HTP99 said:
I'm confused, you are worrying about services which you state that you are unlikely to use any time soon, if at all, very odd!
In my circle of friends there's probably been a baby once a month for the best part of a year, One wasn't far off having the baby at the roadside, was treated poorly in the hospital and bleeding heavily, another (7 months pregnant) recently had a scare, rang local midwife lead hospital unit and was told to go to the full maternity unit 45 minutes away, rang them on route to tell them the situation and that they'd be arriving shortly and was told to turn around and go back to the midwife led unit only to find it was open for another hour when they got there. Luckily nothing serious was wrong. My Nephew was also born 3 months premature, luckily my brother has moved from our home town to Bristol and they were about 5 minutes away from a special care baby unit, if he was born in our home town he likely wouldn't be here today because of my concerns in the original post.
Kermit power said:
I'm trying to decide if I should have any sympathy for you or not.
If you're like one of the other posters who seems to live on one side of Southampton in the fairly expensive, heavily congested South East and would have to fight through City traffic to get to a hospital on the other side of the city, then yes, you have my sympathy.
If, on the other hand, you live in some rural idyll with glorious views, next to no crime, low property prices and oodles of space per person then tough! You've made a lifestyle choice, and the distance from a major hospital, lower speed broadband and less choice of restaurants is the trade off you're making for all of those lovely benefits.
Technically I do live in a place like this, but it wasn't really my lifestyle choice to be born here. The local hospital did recently (about 5 years) have specialist maternity service or at least something ran by doctors rather than midwives (taking nothing away from midwives). The new alternate unit in a different hospital isn't even in the same county, is linked by A&B roads not a motorway, on a route with a lot of ferry/heavy good traffic without great overtaking and constantly plagued with roadworks. Also to add that it is 45 minutes at best from my house and probably greater than an hour for more rural areas. I live in a fair sized town. If you're like one of the other posters who seems to live on one side of Southampton in the fairly expensive, heavily congested South East and would have to fight through City traffic to get to a hospital on the other side of the city, then yes, you have my sympathy.
If, on the other hand, you live in some rural idyll with glorious views, next to no crime, low property prices and oodles of space per person then tough! You've made a lifestyle choice, and the distance from a major hospital, lower speed broadband and less choice of restaurants is the trade off you're making for all of those lovely benefits.
Kermit power said:
Nevertheless, there is a finite pot of money, despite what successive governments over recent decades have tried to make us believe.
If they shouldn't be reducing services in sparsely populated areas, where else should they be making cuts to pay for it?
Red tape, unnecessary jobs, ridiculous wages paid to directors etc, charge for Alcohol/drugs related injuries, don't supply drugs such as paracetamol as part of the service as they can be easily be bouth in Tesco for 16p a packet and you can bet the NHS doesn't pay that for them. recently hear of NHS paying for thousands of Dyson hand driers when there were alternatives at a fraction of the price. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3091294/hospital-chi...If they shouldn't be reducing services in sparsely populated areas, where else should they be making cuts to pay for it?
battered said:
It is however your choice to *continue* living there. I don't live where I was born or where I grew up. Likewise, my parents, who lived in the same house for 35 years in a rural idyll, moved to the outskirts of a city when they felt they needed decent medical services nearby. They have since needed them and benefitted from having York hospital and its attendant ambulances and paramedics 10 minutes away.
As someone else said, there isn't enough money for us all to have Papworth or Guy's at the end of the road. However even in rural counties you can mitigate the effects. Move out of darkest Devon and nearer to Exeter/Plymouth, or leave mid-Wales and venture nearer bigger towns in the W Mids. We all have to compromise with housing, I'd live in the sticks but I need access to motorways for work, so I choose suburbia.
Moving isn't really an alternative as I work in the oil industry, even if i moved to another facility i'd be starting at the bottom of my pay grade again so taking a £20-30k pay cut. As someone else said, there isn't enough money for us all to have Papworth or Guy's at the end of the road. However even in rural counties you can mitigate the effects. Move out of darkest Devon and nearer to Exeter/Plymouth, or leave mid-Wales and venture nearer bigger towns in the W Mids. We all have to compromise with housing, I'd live in the sticks but I need access to motorways for work, so I choose suburbia.
We did have the service in our local hospital but it has been downgraded, my reason for starting the thread is to wonder if there are many other people in the nation in a similar position. I.e. being 50 minutes / 35 miles away from what I would deem an essential service. Families shouldn't be in a position where they have that time frame to get to a suitable hospital.
For example say my friend who is due to go into labour any day now, with no suggestion of any issues in the build up did as recommended and went to the local midwife led unit (20 minutes away) and then suffered complications she would then have to travel 45-50 minutes to the specialist hospital in a situation which may be time critical. No family should be placed at that level of risk.
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