A campaigner called for “straight answers and a clear plan” from health bosses ahead of a meeting to save the children’s ward at Boston Pilgrim Hospital.
SOS Pilgrim have organised a meeting at 7pm tonight at Boston Grammar School in an effort to seek answers from United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust regarding the review into the paediatric service at Pilgrim.
Ahead of the meeting, campaigner Alison Marriott, whose two-week old baby is still on the neonatal unit at the hospital, said the public need a plan for the crisis on the ward.
“There will be a broad range of people to put questions to tonight,” she said.
“The public need straight answers and we need straight answers.
“What I hope to get and what we will get are two very different things.
Boston Pilgrim Hospital. Picture: Steve Smailes.
“What we hope to get are straight answers and a clear plan to avert this crisis, but I suspect what we will get is a lack of straight answers and more passing the buck.”
Boston and Skegness MP, Matt Warman, is expected to attend the meeting tonight, as well as Dr Keiran Sharrock of the Lincolnshire Local Medical Committee, Mayor of Boston Councillor Bernard Rush and a ULHT spokesperson.
ULHT has proposed five options for the service, including the temporary closure of the inpatient ward from June 4 but has yet to make a decision.
Other options include:
Maintaining services as they are
Closing paediatric services from June 4 and retaining consultant led obstetrics and neonatology until July 1 when staffing can no longer support neonatology
Maintain current services including neonatology but stop all planned paediatric operations at both Pilgrim and Lincoln County Hospitals
Providers across the region to cover neonatal services for Pilgrim maternity and neonatology from July 1
The board is expected to decide on the future of the children’s ward at a meeting on May 25.
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