22,000 Sign To Keep Brain Surgery Units
Protesters against plans to merge Scotland’s four neurosurgery units are to deliver a 22,000-name petition to Holyrood, amid growing fears that the move would cost lives.
The Kerr report on the future of Scotland’s health services recommended two years ago that neurosurgery services should eventually be provided from a single hub.
A group of experts is discussing the future of Scotland’s four specialist units – in Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Campaigners are due to present the petition to MSPs tomorrow. It calls for any merger proposals to be shelved.
The protesters are backed by leading neurosurgeons and clinicians, who claim patients will die if the Aberdeen unit is closed. It provides services for about 750,000 Scots.
Dr John Moore, a consultant clinical neurophysiologist who worked at the Aberdeen unit for 16 years and is now based in Dundee, said: “It is inconceivable that a comparable service could be provided from the Central Belt. Inevitably, patients will die and, as a result of long incident-to-theatre times, the general quality of clinical outcomes will be poorer.”
He added: “It is worth bearing in mind that one in 60 of the population is admitted to hospital care with a brain injury each year. It would be an act of profound vandalism to contemplate closing this unit.”
The petition campaign is being led by Walter Baxter, the chairman of the charity Brainhelp.
Mr Baxter, 57, who was treated for a brain haemorrhage in 1998, said there were mounting fears in the North-east that the Aberdeen and Dundee units would be closed in an efficiency drive.
He said: “If the Aberdeen unit is closed it will cost lives. It will mean that people with brain injuries or trauma in the north of Scotland will have to travel hundreds of miles extra for life-saving treatment.
“And can you imagine the inconvenience for families of patients, who will face a 300-mile round trip to visit their relatives with a brain injury if they come from Aberdeen,” said Mr Baxter. “And further north it will be even worse.
“Aberdeen’s neurosurgery department provides services to more than 750,000 residents from Grampian, the Western Isles, Highland, Orkney and Shetland, and I cannot believe it is under threat.”
A spokeswoman for the Scottish Government said that the neurosurgery implementation group was examining the way forward.
She added: “No decisions have been made regarding the future of neurosurgery in Aberdeen.
“In considering the implementation group’s recommendations, ministers will need to be convinced they have a strong evidence base, with consideration of patient safety as their core.”
