Hello!
Thank you for signing this petition.
One of the simplest actions you can take to support our campaign is to write to your elected representatives and ask them to support our campaign.
Responsibility for the NHS in Scotland primarily lies with the Scottish Government, so it is most important to contact all your MSPs. You have eight MSPs: one Constituency MSP, who represents just your local area, and seven Regional MSPs, who together represent the wider region you live in.
You can also contact your local Councillors and MPs and ask them to support our campaign.
The easiest way to do this is to go to https://www.writetothem.com. You will be asked for your postcode and then will be taken to a page with links to directly email all your councillors, your constituency MSP, all your regional MSPs and your MP. We recommend contacting all of them.
You can copy and paste the following template email to them, or feel free to personalise or write your own.
There is also a summery of the concerns below, or if you care to visit Wishaw Neonatal Warriors Facebook page, you can find a detailed summery of concerns, with links to the relevant documents.
Finally, please ask your family and friends to do the same. It is important that as many people as possible contact their elected representatives, especially MSPs, to keep this matter high on the agenda and ensure that they know that we are not going away and will keep fighting until the decision to downgrade Wishaw NICU is reversed.
Email to MSP (other than Neil Gray MSP)
Email to Councillor
Email to MP
Dear ….
I am writing to ask you to support the campaign to reverse the decision to downgrade the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at University Hospital Wishaw.
University Hospital Wishaw houses an award-winning Level 3 NICU. I am dismayed that the Scottish Government plans to downgrade this unit, meaning that it will no longer be able to care for the most vulnerable premature babies, including those born at 27 weeks or less gestation and/or weighing less than 800g and/or have the most severe medical issues.
The Wishaw Neonatal Warriors are a campaign group formed by families who have benefitted directly from treatment in this unit and are being supported by thousands of people across Lanarkshire, including people who work in the hospital and across the NHS.
The group have highlighted many concerns, including:
The sickest and most premature babies born in University Hospital Wishaw will have to be moved to one of the other units. Whilst the nearest are in Glasgow and Edinburgh, the capacity there is limited, and babies may end up in Aberdeen or in the north of England. This will put these babies through the trauma of moving them, could separate them from their mother at this crucial time, could separate the mother from her wider support network, and take up significant resources including specialist medical staff to facilitate the move.
The process to make this decision was secretive, lacked stakeholder engagement and consultation and there was no evaluation of clinical outcomes from the early implementation stage.
Some of the most deprived places to live in Scotland are in the immediate vicinity of University Hospital Wishaw. Preterm birth rates are higher in areas of high deprivation, and people living here are highly likely to struggle with the additional costs of travelling to support loved ones in a hospital further away, even if in Glasgow or Edinburgh.
I am asking that you please let me know your views on this matter and support the campaign to stop the downgrade of Wishaw’s NICU by raising at every opportunity and write to the Cabinet Secretary for NHS Recovery, Health and Social Care, Neil Gray MSP, and ask him to reverse this decision immediately.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely,
ADD NAME
Email to Neil Gray MSP
*If you live in Airdrie and Shotts Scottish Parliament constituency, your constituency MSP is Neil Gray. As he is the Cabinet Secretary responsible for this decision, we are asking other politicians to contact him. This means we need a slightly different template letter for him:
Dear Cabinet Secretary,
I am writing to ask you to support the campaign to reverse the decision to downgrade the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at University Hospital Wishaw.
University Hospital Wishaw houses an award-winning Level 3 NICU. I am dismayed that the Scottish Government plans to downgrade this unit, meaning that it will no longer be able to care for the most vulnerable premature babies, including those born at 27 weeks or less gestation and/or weighing less than 800g and/or have the most severe medical issues.
The Wishaw Neonatal Warriors are a campaign group formed by families who have benefitted directly from treatment in this unit and are being supported by thousands of people across Lanarkshire, including people who work in the hospital and across the NHS.
The group have highlighted many concerns, including:
The sickest and most premature babies born in University Hospital Wishaw will have to be moved to one of the other units. Whilst the nearest are in Glasgow and Edinburgh, the capacity there is limited, and babies may end up in Aberdeen or in the north of England.
This will put these babies through the trauma of moving them, could separate them from their mother at this crucial time, could separate the mother from her wider support network, and take up significant resources including specialist medical staff to facilitate the move.
The process to make this decision was secretive, lacked stakeholder engagement and consultation and there was no evaluation of clinical outcomes from the early implementation stage.
Some of the most deprived places to live in Scotland are in the immediate vicinity of University Hospital Wishaw. Preterm birth rates are higher in areas of high deprivation, and people living here are highly likely to struggle with the additional costs of travelling to support loved ones in a hospital further away, even if in Glasgow or Edinburgh.
I am asking that you please immediately reverse the decision to downgrade University Hospital Wishaw’s NICU.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely,
ADD NAME
Summary of the case against downgrading Wishaw’s NICU
There are significant inconsistencies in the decision-making process, in particular in the scoring of units with a wider than expected range of scores given.
The criteria named as “essential” has not been met by one of the successful hospitals (Aberdeen).
Complete lack of transparency in decision making process, with the Perinatal Subgroup keeping vital information private.
Lack of stakeholder engagement and representation. NHS Lanarkshire neonatal services were not directly represented in the process, and at no stage was there any significant consultation with parent/family groups, elected representatives, health board members or the staff and experts within the unit.
The announcement was made during school holidays/parliamentary recess, when there would be the least amount of scrutiny of the decision.
Families are more likely to have to go through the terrifying ordeal of having their premature child transferred to another hospital. This might be in Glasgow or Edinburgh but could also be in Aberdeen or in the North of England if there are no spaces at these hospitals.
If the mother is not well enough to travel, she will be separated from her baby. This is against all existing advice and will disrupt this vital bonding period as well as prevent the baby receiving breast milk at this crucial time.
If the mother is well enough to travel, both her and her baby will taken to location further from where they live. This means separating the mother from her older children and her support network at the most traumatic of times.
There has be NO evaluation of the clinical outcomes in the early implementation stage (ie test run) of this proposal. This project is going ahead with limited information about the potential impact.
It is claimed that the intention is that mothers will travel BEFORE giving birth to premature babies.
Many babies born this early come without warning.
The transfer of expectant high-risk mums, and premature babies, will require a team of people to transfer them (Scotstar specialist ambulance service, midwives, neonatologists etc) who will then not be available in the local area, at a time where the NHS is severely understaffed.
Some of the most deprived places to live in Scotland are in the immediate vicinity of University Hospital Wishaw.
Preterm birth rates rise in correlation with deprivation.
The people living here are highly likely to struggle with the additional costs of travelling to support loved ones in a hospital further away, even if in Glasgow or Edinburgh.
Downgrading the neonatal intensive care unit will cause the movement of skilled medical professionals to other units (indeed this is the point of the reorganisation) and result in the reduction of skills and experience overall that benefits all patients on this ward.
This proposed closure occurs at a time when the number of infant deaths is rising in Scotland.