Publicity for Congenital Heart Disease, good and very very sad...

Its been a week...
The running has been 3 good runs - the pb for 10km, within 30s of my 5km pb, and a good solid half marathon distance today in 2:55:34... A 5km around Regent's Park before a GUCH meeting and a good week all round.

The good bit is being recognised standing at Euston station as the bloke out of country walking! Now that's scary... As a friends has pointed out I normally get confused with Ray Mears... No recognised for being myself!

Related to that the GUCH Walking Club is the TGO Walking Club of the Month...


Two walking mags in a month, and from what I can find out a combined readership of c80,000 people - lets hope some of them find us interesting, or passes our name on to someone who had congenital hearts defects.

The sad news is that surgery for children with heart conditions has been stopped at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, 4 children died unexpectedly, and the hospital has done the right thing in stopping surgery and is doing a review. The review will look at all aspects of the care that the children have had, so not just the surgery... The only example of what's going to happen is a write up of a review of Papworth's transplant surgery which can be read here - http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/apr/06/healthandwellbeing.nhs

I don't have a crystal ball, I don't know what the review will find, but I feel for the families who've children have died who by now have worked out that their child is at the centre of an investigation. The papers are doing their best to make this a big story, and it is, but for the right reasons, a potential problem has been spotted and if changes need to be made they will be made before surgery begins again.

I always promised this would be an honest blog, so lets hope there's more and better news in the coming weeks

TTFN

Paul

Comments

  1. Penny Green8 March 2010 at 08:46

    And in light of the piece in the Telegraph, Paul, let's hope that the news finally addresses the issue of safe surgical numbers in paediatric cardiac units. The decision has been pussy-footed around for too long!

    ReplyDelete
  2. PaulWillgoss8 March 2010 at 18:48

    Far far too long... we've ahd the reviews, been involved in deciding what needs to happen, lets just hope some politician starts growing the big hairy ones to implement the decisions.

    No everyone is going to like the reduction from 11 centres to 6, and yes there are issues about travelling and support at local centres, but this has gone on too long, too many lives have been lost!

    and yes this makes me bloody angry!

    Paul

    ReplyDelete

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