Questions need to be answered over failings at Dewsbury and District Hospital
No critically ill child should be put at risk when they are admitted to an emergency unit. The death of 19-month old Raisa Cristina Iordan was tragic enough but the fact that major concerns raised by staff members and medical organisations since that time have been ignored is bordering on negligence.
This isn’t about parents highlighting problems with the treatment of critically ill children but qualified professionals. A senior health professional has gone so far as to tell this newspaper that emergency care standards at Dewsbury and District Hospital remain “unsafe” – two years after a group of staff warned senior management of their serious concerns.
Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust, which runs Dewsbury and District Hospital, may be currently reviewing its clinical models across the Trust and agreed funding for over a dozen more staff, but the question still remains as to why little has been done to rectify the issues highlighted by professionals to date.
The current Labour Government is trying to reconnect care with communities but many of these places feel that the damage is irreparable. While in the past it was a given that a town the size of Dewsbury and the surrounding district would get a fully functioning hospital delivering the best possible care, that is no longer the case.
Local people protested repeatedly against the downgrading of Dewsbury and District Hospital through the 2010s. It is a dire strait predicted by the community who warned back then that downgrading the facility would put lives at risk.
Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust must work fast to reassure patients and staff alike that concerns are not only being addressed but that should issues arise in the future, they will be remedied immediately. A failure to do so risks irreparable damage to the Trust and its reputation.