The campaign to save the Liverpool Women’s hospital is moving is up a step and we need your help. There are at least three strands to this consultation.
1. The Hospital Trust and the National Health Service bodies such as Monitor
2. The Clinical Commissioning Group in Liverpool (this is the umbrella group that makes NHS policy in Liverpool)
3. Liverpool City Council
Each set of organisations has been having consultation exercises. Liverpool Council’s is drawing to its close. Oddly two roadshows from the Council on the issue were no shows. We turned up to give our views but those supposed to listen didn’t bother to appear.
Please help us get the campaign views across. We are doing two different contributions; one is about the health needs of Women in the area and the other is about the Hospital itself. We are starting with the health needs of women.
Feel free to copy or alter it and submit it yourself to Liverpool City Council or suggest changes and additions.
The Health Care Women in Liverpool and Neighbouring Areas Need in the 21st century
A response to consultations.
When we started the Save Liverpool Women’s hospital campaign we started with a simple call “To demand full public funding to allow Liverpool Women’s Hospital to thrive, for all our sisters, mothers, daughters and babies. No privatisation or cuts”
This campaign is taking place at a very difficult time for the NHS and there are many cases to be made about the nature of the changes to the NHS. Poverty in this city is growing especially amongst families with young children. All of these are important issues
However, the future of Liverpool Women’s Hospital is under discussion. When we searched the papers there was little in the documentation that specifically looked at women’s health. This is one contribution to that aspect of the discussion. After people have had the chance to comment then this document will be taken to the Clinical Commissioning Group, a key player in plans for the future of Liverpool hospitals.
Save Liverpool Women’s Hospital campaign call for the following
- That babies and children are provided with good NHS care. That gender stereotypes are countered.
We say that the teenage women of Liverpool and the area served by the women’s hospital need:
- Clear and effective education in emotional and sexual relationships, on the biological and the emotional elements in relationships, on how to recognise and end abusive relationships, and how to develop independence and self-esteem.
- Full and appropriate education on breast feeding.
- Safe, effective, contraception without threat to our fertility, and with full information on all available methods and services available to all.
- Recognition that poverty damages young women and the babies they may later bear.
- Recognition that growing up needing food banks is bad for each generation.
- Recognition of the particular needs of care leavers, of survivors of abuse and of those with chronic illnesses.
- Respect for the cultural needs of all young women in Liverpool, gay, straight and trans, of every race and nationality and every religion.
- Access to healthy lifestyles.
- Speedy access to good mental health services.
- Good quality comprehensive NHS sexual health services.
- A determined drive to reduce the number of women who are burdened with additional health issues during pregnancy.
- Access to opportunities to train as doctors, midwives, nurses and other health professionals so our own community can share the challenge of health care for the future.
- Young men to be educated about their own physical and emotional sexuality and the requirements of healthy respectful relationships and healthy enduring fatherhood.
For women of child-bearing age
- Access to good maternity care free at the point of need for every woman. That this be within the NHS which allows for excellent staff training and education, good quality monitoring of the service and access to latest research.
- That maternity need be as relaxed and non-medicalised as possible
- That there is choice of home and hospital births, with good levels of staffing including emergency backup services for home births.
- That women’s choices are respected; that information is shared respectfully. That choices are respected.
- Support for teen mums ( and dads) is developed
- Support for pre and post-natal depression be improved both clinically and socially.
- That the 60% of births in the Liverpool Women’s that have additional health issues are well supported before pregnancy, during pregnancy, during the birth and in early motherhood
- That the premises of Liverpool women’s hospital are protected and developed without Privatisation
- That fertility services be available to all.
- That same sex couples have fertility support.
- That good quality contraception continues to be available.
For mothers and babies
That mothers should make the choice between hospital or home births. That the increase in home births should be adequately supported by additional ambulance services and good flying squad care, funded to allow these service to work even in the depths of winter crises
- Babies and mothers need each other. All services should respect and support that bond and help develop wider family bonds where necessary. Mothers and babies should be kept close as much as possible
- Breast feeding should be supported and developed with specialist midwives and community support.
- Those mothers who choose not to or are not able to breast feed be supported in appropriate bottle feeding.
- That methods of support for new mothers be developed across the area, in consultation with mothers and grandmothers.
- That employers are educated in the need for good maternity leave provision.
For older women
That good quality care for the menopause is available.
We need recognition of the stresses and strains that sandwich generation women face and their needs for care whilst caring.
That care for very elderly women is fully funded without discrimination recognising that independent life at times depends on timely medical and surgical interventions.
For women who are ill
That woman focused treatment, care and research is developed.
Liverpool IWW condemns the council’s proposed “Public Space Protection Order”, under which the homeless could be fined up to £1,000 for the ‘crime’ of begging. We call on the people of Liverpool to show their opposition, by demonstrating at St Luke’s bombed out church a week on Saturday (14th November) from 12 noon, and signing the Change.org petition, which already had nearly 7,000 signatures at the time of going to press.
Dorset IWW General Members’ Branch is pleased to announce that our dispute with a Bournemouth outlet of the Co-operative has been settled amicably. We have a verbal assurance from local management who are USDAW members, that they have no wish to exploit unpaid workers on their premises, and that their connection with ‘Prospects’ has been severed. We congratulate them on their principled decision and affirm our commitment to defeat the government’s work programme and end unpaid labour.
Infantile Disorder 