I, Simon Childs, am petitioning the Hywel Dda Health Board and the Health Minister of the Welsh Government, to continue to provide 24 hour Paediatrics and Obstetrics at Bronglais General Hospital, Aberystwyth.

Back in August 2014, the Hywel Dda Health Board and the Labour led Welsh Assembly pushed through the policy of centralisation to Glangwili Hospital in Carmarthen.

This decision has had a completely negative and adverse impact on health care in Ceredigion and other areas covered by Bronglais, with many families being forced to travel for an hour or more to reach Glangwili for the health care they desperately need.  Moreover this has also caused a great deal of hardship for these families, myself included as a Grandfather, as we have been forced to drive in some cases over 100 miles round trip to reach these services.  Sometimes even much further when Glangwili is often full up with babies and other children, not only from Ceredigion but also from Pembrokeshire, as Withybush Hospital at Haverfordwest has lost 24 hour SCBU and Paediatric services.

Lives have been put at risk and will continue to be so by the moving of services further afield and this is totally unacceptable in this day and age.  Severely ill children that would otherwise be seen locally and stabilised locally, are now having to wait many hours for a Paediatric team based  in  Bristol (until recently Cardiff) to travel to Aberystwyth and then take the child to a hospital over an hour away at least, assuming that a incubator or bed is available at Carmarthen.   This specialist ambulance, and I understand there is only one, accepts referrals from 22 hospitals, and covers everywhere from the South West of England (Gloucestershire, Wiltshire ,former Avon area, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall), and  paediatric cardiac intensive care for children from South Wales (from Severn Bridge to Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire etc) that takes several hours to arrive.

The problems that the current centralisation policy have caused are horrendous to families and needs addressing immediately with the utmost urgency. We need  to keep all our health services and I am concerned that in the near future some essential services will be removed which will compromise the safety of mothers, babies, children and others.  Please sign this petition to try to prevent this happening  to Bronglais Hospital.    Thank you.