A mother whose infant was treated at the children’s heart unit in Leicester’s Glenfield hospital is calling on the public to support a petition aimed at preventing the closure of the specialist centre.
Charlotte Grabowski told MummyPages how her son Billy, now four, received the upmost care at Glenfield’s Congenital Heart Centre while he was recovering from cardiac arrest at the age of 13 months.
The mother of two described how the unit supported her son and family during the “blurred nightmare” experience which began when Billy was found “blue and lifeless” after a rare fibroma mass – which measured 5.5cm in length – caused his heart to beat at an abnormal pace.
Once the cause of Billy’s condition was discovered, he was transferred to Glenfield for five week’s recovery. He has attended regular scans at the facility since.
His mum said: “I just remember unbearable grief. The brain scans, heart scans, cat scans, MRI scans, blood tests and tubes for all sorts of things, wires everywhere and all I wanted was to hold him and see the happy smiley face I missed the most.”
“Without this place where Billy has regular scans and spent a good five weeks recovering from his cardiac arrest, we would have been lost. They cared for us when we needed it most.”
Thankfully Billy – who has been described by his mother as “little for his age but…incredible” – survived and has now started school, but Charlotte fears the closure of the unit and subsequent visits to a new hospital could disrupt her son's education as it is likely he will have to travel some distance for the care he needs.
She is asking the public to help prevent the closure of the centre by signing an online petition which is calling for a public review of the decision to shut down the children’s heart unit.
So far the petition has received the support of more than 30,000 people, but if it gains 100,000 signatures it will be considered for debate in Parliament.
“It takes less than a minute,” she said. “So many lives will be affected if the heart centre closes.”
In July, the NHS announced its plan to shut down the centre which performs potentially life-saving surgeries on sick babies and children on the grounds that the unit is not conducting enough operations to maintain the skill levels of the surgeons working there.
Units at London’s Royal Brompton and the Central Manchester hospital were issued with similar ultimatums.
All three hospitals were told they would no longer be able to perform complex heart surgeries due to their failure to meet “core standards of quality and sustainability” and the prediction that they would be “extremely unlikely” to meet those standards in the near future.
On Saturday, almost 200 campaigners – some of whom were accompanied by children who had been treated at Glenfield’s Congenital Heart Centre - gathered in opposition of NHS England’s plan, the Leicester Mercury has reported.
Last week, Spalding Today announced that the UNISON trade union – which represents more than 1.3 million workers – is working closely with managers at Glenfield after a father’s call to save the unit received the support of more than 200 people.
Save Glenfield Children’s Heart Centre will host a march in opposition of the planned closure at Victoria Park in Leicester on Saturday October 29.
Images: The Lincolnite; ITV Central; keithvazmp.com; lizkendall.org
