Vital Redditch children’s ward saved daughter’s life - The Redditch Standard

Vital Redditch children’s ward saved daughter’s life

Redditch Editorial 23rd Jul, 2016 Updated: 18th Oct, 2016   0

REDDITCH mum Collette Kearney says she knows just how vital the children’s ward – Ward 1 – is at the Alexandra Hospital.

Her severely disabled daughter Amy, who has just turned 19, was a frequent visitor there and says but for the dedicated staff on the ward she would have died.

“Amy has all sorts of problems and needs 24-hour care but what sparked this incident was a bout of tonsilitis and if it hadn’t been for the nurses on Ward 1 she would have died,” said Collette, who has herself trained as a nurse.

“Back in February she had to be rushed to the Alex and we had to wait 40 minutes for an ambulance but at least it was only down the road, imagine what might have happened if she’d had to go to Worcester.




“The health authority keeps saying the Alex doesn’t need saving well actually it bloody well does.”

Collette says she decided to speak out after seeing Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust WAHT) first withdraw emergency gynaecology, then maternity, then emergency trauma cases and now childrens in-patient services from the Alex to Worcestershire Royal.


On WAHT insistence that 95 per cent of patients would still be seen at the Alex she said: “They keep hiding behind this five per cent figure, but that five per cent is thousands of people.

“They need to be implementing more services in Redditch not reducing them.”

Neal Stote, chairman of Save the Alex campaign, said: “The health authority needs to be absolutely clear what services for children will be available at the Alex because this is children’s lives we are talking about and they have got to get it right.”

A spokesman for WAHT said the temporary closure of the childrens ward was being taken on safety grounds and child in-patients would be well looked after in Worcester.

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