Paediatric Services at Royal Glamorgan Hospital

From a local resident and campaigner Sam Trask:

"Last month, our 5 year old little girl Lucie was admitted to the children’s ward in the Royal Glamorgan Hospital, suffering with a nasty kidney infection. She was treated for the following 6 days, and between us, my wife and I spent the entire time in hospital with her, whilst the other managed to take and collect our other daughter from school, do a couple of shifts at work, and try and keep home life going. Were it not for the ward being local, maintaining school and family life would have been virtually impossible.

During the time we spent there, Lucie received excellent care (and has since made a full recovery), and we noted that even though the ward is due to be closed this summer, it was busy the entire time and even overflowing into the ward next door some nights."

Closing this ward would mean there would be no children’s in-patient care anywhere in Rhondda Cynon Taff. We are very concerned that losing this ward would mean that a great number of families will face long travel times to either the Prince Charles hospital in Merthyr Tydfil or the Children’s Hospital for Wales in Cardiff, and huge disruption to their lives because of it - especially if they have to use public transport.

The same applies to obstetric services: if the maternity ward is closed women in the area, particularly from the tops of the two Rhondda valleys, will face an arduous and unnecessarily long journey either to Cardiff or Merthyr. I believe these proposed closures will put more strain on the already overstretched ambulance service and I believe that lives could be put in danger because of the extra travelling time involved.

We the undersigned call on Cwm Taf University health board to maintain obstetric and paediatric in-patient services at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital, as it is a well used and valuable local service to the people of Rhondda Cynon Taff.