THE position of the Sick Kids as a world class children's hospital is to be boosted by the appointment of seven new consultants.
It is more good news for city patients following health secretary Nicola Sturgeon's announcement that it will retain its top level paediatric cancer service, a victory for the Evening News campaign.
Ms Sturgeon today joined one of the hospital's top consultants to pay tribute to the campaign, which saw more than 25,000 people sign up in support.
The Health Secretary said the Sick Kids was the biggest winner of what she called the most comprehensive review of specialist children's services ever undertaken in Scotland.
Rather than centralise children's cancer or neurology services, the government has decided to join the four children's hospitals – in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee – through a "managed clinical network", which will give them a better opportunity to share expertise.
Dr Hamish Wallace, consultant paediatric oncologist at the Sick Kids – the lead clinician for cancer across the network – welcomed the news today as he heaped praise on the Evening News and former brain tumour sufferer Ross Newlands who started the petition.
"The Evening News campaign, in conjunction with Ross Newlands has helped raise this issue," he said. "I saw Ross at (cancer charity) CLIC Sargent recently. He is a real survivor with great guts.
"I am delighted the minister has made this announcement. It is a huge weight off the backs of all our patients and staff."
He predicted a bright future for the Sick Kids, which is planning to almost double its level of expertise in cancer with two new consultants, taking its total to five. A new consultant will also be recruited in neurology with a further four hired in intensive care where the number of beds will be rising from six to eight.
Some of those consultants will work in the national retrieval service, run jointly by the Sick Kids and Yorkhill in Glasgow to transport patients to the nearest intensive care beds.
Specifically, they will go out to district hospitals to train medics there to carry out life-saving treatment, so youngsters are stabilised before they are brought to intensive care beds in Edinburgh or Glasgow, to boost their eventual survival and recovery chances.
The new recruits will cost NHS Lothian and the Scottish Government around £7 million.
Ms Sturgeon said: "I would like to say a big thank-you to everyone who has already made their views known, and pay tribute to the Evening News and its interest."
She added: "For the Sick Kids in Edinburgh, perhaps more than for any of the other hospitals, this is an enhancement.
"That will involve additional investment, additional consultants – it's good news for the Sick Kids in Edinburgh.
"We are looking, over the next period, at having a new children's hospital in the Lothians and quality children's services are integral to that."
The new Sick Kids hospital is to be built in Little France in 2012.
Dr Zoe Dunhill, clinical director of children's service at NHS Lothian, said: "I think we see ourselves, in the future, as being part of this very, very robust network of four children's hospitals working in a much greater partnership. We simply could not survive on our own."
'This is a great day for us'
MOTHER-OF-THREE Maria Cowan is one of many parents who breathed a sigh of relief when Nicola Sturgeon decided not to downgrade children's cancer services in Edinburgh.
Mrs Cowan's son Luke, two, has a brain tumour and is undergoing treatment at the Sick Kids.
While he met Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon (pictured above), Mrs Cowan, 37, from Broxburn – who also has two daughters – said: "We have to keep a level of normality at home as well as make sure he gets the best possible care. So this is a great day for us."
She added: "Luke is in hospital every 14 days, so if we'd had to travel further for treatment we would have been away from the girls and it really would have made life difficult."
The full article contains 686 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
