Heatherwood Hospital
July to December 1979

Health Cuts On The Way To Balance The Books

By Stephen Double
Drastic cuts must be made in East Berkshire's health service before the end of March to wipe out a £1⁄2 million deficit in the budget.
But the East Berkshire district management team hope Ascot's Heatherwood Hospital can be expanded despite strong pressure on them to make swingeing cut-backs.
The deficit stems from £350,000 over spending on drugs and equipment, a £100,000 debt carried forward from last year, and a commitment to spend £50,000 on much- needed maternity beds at Heatherwood.
The district management committee has until March 31 to balance its books and there is little hope of help from the government.
Problems
The rapidly rising birth rate in East Berkshire has led to serious problems, with mother's-to be having to go to hospitals outside the area to have their babies because of congested maternity wards.
Some pregnant women find themselves directed to the Royal Berks Hospital in Reading or Frimley Park Hospital, instead of Heatherwood or the Canadian Red Cross Memorial Hospital in Taplow.
East Berkshire's birth rate has soared by 400 extra births a year over the past two years.
The rate stands at 4,500 for the past year compared to 4,100 in 1977. The area's infant mortality rate is also below the national average.
The baby boom is partly put down to the increased reluctance of women to use the Pill, and doctors believe more of today's pregnancies could be accidental.
An extra burden is placed on the hospitals today as home births in the area are now down to about two dozen a year.
Heatherwood presently has 59 maternity beds, and the £50,000 will be spent on providing another 12 beds in a portable building next to the present maternity unit. The running costs will run to a staggering £90,000 a year.
A cloud hangs over plans for further facilities at Heatherwood as the district management team now has to scrutinise every pound spent.
Serious
It is hoped to develop surgery facilities, and most pressing of all, psychiatric treatment. East Berkshire has a serious problem with a long waiting list of people needing treatment, particularly among the mentally confused elderly.
At the moment St Bernard's Hospital in Southall has to take most of East Berkshire's mentally ill, as hospitals in East Berkshire cannot cope. Now St Bernard's is filled to overflowing and has asked the Berkshire Area Health Authority to deal with the patients.
Nurses
Some patients are being treated at their homes with the aid of home helps or district nurses. In some cases the health authority is paying for private beds for the mentally ill.
One of the first moves in the cut backs is the operation of Windsor's King Edward VII casualty unit during office hours only-Monday to Friday from 9 am to 5 pm. Any overflow patients will be sent to Heatherwood or Slough's Wexham Park Hospital.
Extract Bracknell & Wokingham Times 05/07/1979

 

It's Your Health Service

East Berkshire Community Health Council Public Meeting to launch fifth Annual Report Wednesday, July 11, 1979, at 8pm. The Recreation Hall, Heatherwood Hospital, Ascot.
Inquiries: CHC Office, 30 Windsor Road, Slough. Tel. Slough 20357.
Extract Bracknell Times 05/07/1979

 

CHC Carry On Fight For A Bracknell General Hospital

The fight for a general hospital in Bracknell is still going on and health watchdogs in the area say they are not going to give up yet.
"It is dragging on because we are not prepared to let it settle without proper discussion, at some level, of the very complex questions involved," says the East Berkshire Community Health Council in its fifth annual report published this week.
The battle started when the Regional Health Authority began to draw up its strategic plan for the next decade.
After a consultation period, the Area Health Authority opted to recommend expanding Heatherwood in Ascot and building a community hospital in the New Town, instead of building a general hospital in Bracknell.
Heatherwood would then become a General Hospital and the one at Bracknell would deal with straight forward illnesses but not emergencies.
Money
Later the Community Health Council claimed that the area authority had not answered all the questions posed by the bodies consulted.
The Community Health Council maintain that it is wrong to expand Heatherwood just because it is the cheapest option.
"The Area Health Authority just looked at money," said Juliet Mattinson, secretary of the CHC. "But we are saying that over a much longer period than the next few years, a general hospital in Bracknell would be the best answer."
The members of the CHC have always stressed that with the growing population, a general hospital will be vital and the Bracknell area would be more central than Ascot.
Mr Bill Wreglesworth, a representative on the CHC said: "The Community Health Council in general is very disappointed with the decision."
He added: "I did not support their option just because I am a Bracknell man but because I could see considerably further than that. We have to think on a much, much bigger scale than that."
Mr Wreglesworth added that a hospital in Bracknell would take patients from a very wide surrounding area and even Wokingham although that comes under the West Berkshire section of the authority.
Meeting
"The battle is by no means lost," said Miss Mattinson. Plans to meet with representatives from the West Berkshire Community Health Council, the Area Health Authority and the Districts are under way with the hope that they can discuss the whole problem. The East Berkshire Community Health Council wrote to the regional authority earlier this year outlining their objections.
"They took the view that we were objecting to the procedure and they told us it was perfectly all right," said Miss Mattinson.
The proposals supported by the Area Health Authority have already been included in the region's strategic plan but the CHC has not given up hope yet.
"After all, all sorts of things can change in 10 years anyway," added Miss Mattinson.
Extract Bracknell Times 12/07/1979

 

New Plea Hospital Comes From Town Mayor

The mayor of Sandhurst has made one of the strongest pleas yet for a hospital to be built in Bracknell.
Coun Arthur Arnold claimed at a special public meeting in Ascot that Sandhurst residents will suffer worse than anyone if the new town does not soon get a hospital.
They will be forced to continue travelling several miles to Ascot's Heatherwood Hospital even though Camberley's Frimley Park Hospital is on their doorstep.
Transport
At present, Berkshire health chiefs are planning to expand Heatherwood to a full district general hospital. Bracknell is earmarked for a smaller community hospital, but there is no indication when it will be built.
The meeting, called by the East Berks Community Health Council, was told a number of Sandhurst residents use Frimley Park. But now, the hospital is planning to cut back on admission from the Sandhurst area.
Said Coun Arnold: "Are we lumbered with Heatherwood?
It isn't the best for the people of Sandhurst, because they have to fight their way over there using a really inadequate public transport system. "We have a first class hospital at Frimley Park, but it does not cover this particular health district.
A hospital for Bracknell makes so much sense."
CHC member Mrs Jan Morrison said her group has asked regional and area medical bosses for a joint meeting.
Extract Evening Post 13/07/1979

 

Volunteers to Run Day-Care Centre

By Stephen Double
Confused elderly people in the Bracknell area are to be dealt with volunteers after the National Health Service has admitted defeat on the problem.
Bracknell's Age Concern organisation has been given permission to open their own day care centre in a bid to stop the break-up of families under strain.
At a health meeting last week the mentally confused elderly were given top priority in the East Berks area as mounting crisis over lack of beds begins to bite.
With psychiatric wards filled to overflowing in East Berks, patients have been sent to St Bernard's Hospital in Southall and they recently announced the admissions from East Berks should stop.
The only chink of light in the gloom is the opening of a psychiatric day unit at Heatherwood Hospital on November 5, which will provide 20 beds for the cost of £179,000 and the opening of the Age Concern day centre.
Examples of the troubles the bed shortage is causing was contained in the annual report of the East Berks Community Health Council.
On Monday night Bracknell District Council's housing committee agreed to allocate a ground floor flat to accommodate the day care centre to be run by Age Concern.
At the committee meeting Dr Jeremy Cobb, the community physician and a member of the East Berks district management team, said: "The problems of the elderly are causing concern for myself and my medical colleagues.
Shaken
"I have been talking to a number of GPs in Bracknell and I have been rather shaken by what they tell me about Some of the problems that seem to be appearing in this town.
"If the situation continues it will make it increasingly difficult to survive. I think the pressure on families will be intense and in some cases will lead to complete family breakdown.
"The problem is much bigger than any of us imagine. If you don't find this sort of accommodation and we don't find it, the truth is nothing will happen." Mrs Sheila Cooper, Bracknell organiser for Age Concern, said she was absolutely delighted with the offer from the council.
She said: "The authorities are well aware of the problem and we at Age Concern have been trying very hard to open up a small day-centre.
The National Health Service is not able to cope with the problem of the mentally confused elderly. We plan to open the centre from Monday to Friday to handle an average of six to eight people a day.
Mrs Cooper appealed for volunteers to come forward to help, if only for a few hours a day, and added the organisation was always in need of donations.
Stress
"The people we are trying to relieve are the families. You get tremendous stress and strain within them.
"What I intend to do is to try and take granny off their hands for a few days a week.
The trouble is they lose all sense of time, sometimes they don't know whether it's night or day. I've given an old lady her lunch and within a few minutes she has forgotten she's had it.
"At the moment it has to be a particularly bad case to get into hospital."
Extract Bracknell Times 19/07/1979

 

Sandhurst Calls For Hospital In Bracknell

By Times reporter
A renewed plea for a hospital in Bracknell has come from the Mayor of Sandhurst.
Coun Arthur Arnold added his weight to the campaign on behalf of travel weary Sandhurst residents who have to go to Ascot's Heatherwood Hospital for treatment.
At a public meeting of the East Berkshire Community Health Council Coun Arnold said: "Are we going to be lumbered with Heatherwood?. "It is not the best for the people of Sandhurst, who have to fight their way over to Heatherwood relying on the inadequate public transport system? "As we live on the outer part of the East Berks Health District, the majority of Sandhurst people rely on Frimley Park Hospital.
This is a very real problem as Frimley Park may have to stop taking in Sandhurst people.
"A hospital for Bracknell makes so much sense."
He added he had no criticisms of Heatherwood as a hospital.
Mrs Jan Morrison, of the Community Health Council, said: "The CHC has asked for a meeting with members of the Regional Health Authority, the Berkshire Area Health Authority, and the other community health authorities over a hospital in Bracknell.
"We want to thrash out some of the questions that have not been answered to our satisfaction. We will go down fighting. "It is simply a geographical argument and not over the facilities at Heatherwood."
Extract Bracknell Times 19/07/1979

 

Tea Trolley For Hospital

Members of the Women's Royal Voluntary Service presented two resuscitation trollies to Heatherwood Hospital at a ceremony last week.
Mrs Mary Hutchinson, local organiser of the Windsor Royal District WRSV made the formal presentation to Mr Derek Fairman, the hospital administrator.
The trollies, which cost almost £1,000 and are equipped with oxygen cylinders, were bought with profits from the outpatients canteen at the hospital.
The WRVS run the canteen every weekday and on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.
Extract Bracknell Times 02/08/1979

Comment:- The above article was accompanied by a photo. Pictured (left to right) Sheila Christian, consultant in charge of the Windsor Accident Service; Mr Harry Austin, Senior Nursing Officer; Sister Wendy Morris; Mr Derek Fairman, hospital administrator; Mrs Mary Hutchinson, local WRVS organiser; three of the helpers in the hospital canteen; Mr Peter Milledge, nursing officer, and Mrs Daphne Walker, district WRVS organiser.
Copyright prevents us from displaying the photo here.

 

Tributes to Stag Hounds Landlady

By Susan Whitehead
Queen's Stag Hounds landlady Mrs Daisy Belcher, who ran the Ascot pub single-handed until she was over 70, died this week at her South Ascot home.
Mrs Belcher, who had been ill for some time, was well loved by all the regulars, many of whom will 'gather outside the Fernbank Road pub tomorrow to pay their last respects as the funeral procession wends its way to Easthampstead Crematorium, Bracknell.
She spent the war years at the Horse and Groom in Ascot High Street and was at the Queen's Stag Hounds for about 15 years. She was a past president of the local branch of the Licensed Victuallers' Ladies' Auxiliary Association.
Mrs Belcher, a widow, was married twice and had six children.
Her son Albert runs the Queen's Arms pub, in Winkfield, and sons Alfred and Stephen run Page's D-I-Y business in South Ascot.
She leaves 15 grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren. Friends described her as a lively woman with a heart of gold who had time to listen to every hard-luck story and was always ready to help people out.
Coach-parties which once called at the pub would go back year after year to keep in touch.
long-standing illness and Mrs Belcher suffered from a recently went into a London clinic for tests, but died at her home, the house attached to her sons' Brockenhurst Road garage.
Extract Bracknell Times 09/08/1979

Comment:- The above article was accompanied by a photo.Queen's Stag Hounds landlady Mrs Daisy Belcher is pictured with one of her birthday cakes which she used to donate to Heatherwood Hospital.
Copyright prevents us from displaying the photo here.

 

Lottery Provides New hospital Equipment

By Stephen Double
Organisations in the Ascot area are going to be nearly £14,000 better off thanks to a council lottery scheme.
The money will be spent on causes as diverse as life saving hospital equipment and public seats.
The cash comes from Windsor and Maidenhead Borough Council's lottery, and Ascot's share comes out of a £111,038 hand out for other causes in the council's area.
Heatherwood Hospital gets the largest slice of the cake in Ascot with £5,500 towards vital new equipment including piped oxygen in the wards and urodynamic machinery.
Mr Derek Fairman, the administrator of Heatherwood Hospital, had put in an application on the hospital's behalf and it had been fully met. "We are very pleased," said Mr Fairman. "It makes things so much easier for the staff.
With the financial situation as it is now we would have had to wait a very long time for the equipment otherwise."
The lottery scheme has run since June, 1978 and its objective is to help out the arts, general amenities and recreational groups in schemes which the council might not normally carry out themselves.
Extract Bracknell Times 06/09/1979

 

Hospital Conditions Are Ghastly - Doctor

By Jane Dauncey
A consultant has hit out at cramped and poor conditions at Ascot's Heatherwood Hospital.
Dr Joseph Warren, who is also a Bracknell district councillor, called for an urgent injection of cash into the hospital.
He told a council environment committee meeting on Thursday: "The recovery area at the hospital is ghastly. When my patients come out of the operating theatre they go into a space 1 can only call it a space some 8ft x 12ft, where any itinerant vagabond can walk in.
There is is only a swing door between them and the outside." "A young child of three or four coming in for an operation has to wait on a trolley alongside an elderly patient who has just had a very serious operation. This could be very frightening The lighting there is totally inadequate too."
After the meeting he explained lighting had to be good to detect slight changes in patients' appearance during the high risk period after an operation.
"If something does go wrong." he said, "the equipment and gas is not there it has to be whizzed down the corridor."
Afraid
Dr Warren said he had just heard £20,000 was available to build the desperately needed recovery and reception unit but he is afraid a plan for a new Bracknell community hospital could siphon off this money.
He told the meeting he feared community hospital might lure crucial staff away from Heatherwood, which already suffers from severe shortages.
His team of anaesthetists at the hospital have to work 84 hours a week to keep pace with operations.
He claimed the hospital should have top priority for any money that was available. Waiting lists for some specialist operations are two years long and he fears they could grow as the Canadian Red Cross hospital moves towards closure.
He estimates Heatherwood needs to provide 60 extra medical beds and 30 extra surgical beds to fill the need left by the Red Cross closure.
At the meeting. Coun Gordon Rimes argued in favour of a community hospital in Bracknell.
Inadequate
"Everything Dr Warren has said points to the fact that Heatherwood is inadequate to serve this area already.
"Let's try for a new district general hospital in Bracknell to serve Wokingham, Bracknell and Sandhurst and the outlying areas. People in Sandhurst are frightened because they are right out on a medical limb. If you are taken seriously ill in Sandhurst you have no chance of getting to a hospital in time. We want to see a general hospital in Bracknell we can try for a smaller community hospital as a second string"
The meeting expressed concern that neither the Heatherwood expansion nor Bracknell's community hospital were mentioned in health authority budgets for the next three years, nor in provisional budgets for the following seven years.
The committee recommended the council ask area and regional health authorities to amend their budget and include the community hospital.
It urged that capital should be put into Heatherwood Hospital as a matter of urgency.
Extract Evening Post 29/09/1979

 

Doctor Warns of Hospital Threat

By Russell Jenkins
'Money must not be siphoned Off'
A doctor at Heatherwood Hospital warned this week the hospital desperately needed money to bring it up to standard.
Senior consultant Dr Joseph Warren, who is also a Bracknell district councillor, said the hospital was at present inadequate to cope with its planned role as a district general hospital.
He said that if the community hospital planned for Bracknell siphoned off money and lured trained staff from Heatherwood the problems would get worse.
Heatherwood has recently been granted £20,000 by the Area Health Authority to improve its recovery area.
But Dr Warren told a meeting of the district council's environment committee last week that more money not less should be spent on "our number one hospital".
After the meeting Dr Warren, an anaesthetist, said: "None of our consultants are against a community hospital for Bracknell but it is vitally important that the district general hospital is adequately funded and staffed.
"There is already a waiting list for some speciality operations of two years and the closure of the Canadian Red Cross hospital will make things worse.
"Heatherwood is inadequate cope with a considerable influx of patients."
At the environment committee meeting last week, Dr Warren made his plea for more money to be spent on Heatherwood.
Attempt
He said: "We fear any attempt to hive off funds to build a community hospital here because it would reduce services at Heatherwood.
"Major operations may have to come to a halt because anaesthetists will be needed to come to the community hospital for relatively small operations.
The recovery area at Heatherwood is ghastly. When my patients come out of the operating theatre they go into a space I can only call it a space-some 8ft by 12ft, where any itinerant vagabond can walk in.
"There is only a swing door between them and the outside."
He went on: "A young child of three or four coming in for an operation has to wait on a trolley alongside an elderly patient who has just had a serious operation. This could be very frightening.
The lighting there is totally inadequate too." Dr Warren's criticism came after he had heard there was £20,000 available to build a new recovery and reception unit at Heatherwood.
He said. his speech was an attempt to make sure plans for the community hospital did not put this cash injection in jeopardy.
If the community hospital were built at least eight of the sixteen operating theatre nursing staff would swop hospitals, said Dr Warren.
More money not less was needed to attract staff in a hospital already suffering from severe staff shortages.
Speaking in favour of a hospital for Bracknell, Coun Gordon Rimes said: "Everything Dr Warren has said points to the fact that Heatherwood is inadequate to serve this area already.
"Let us try for a new district general hospital in Bracknell to serve Wokingham, Bracknell and Sandhurst and the outlying areas. People in Sandhurst are frightened because they are right out on a medical limb. If you are taken seriously ill in Sandhurst you have no chance of getting to hospital in time.
"We want a general hospital in Bracknell we can try for a smaller community hospital as a second string."
The committee voted to ask the regional health authority to change their budget plans to include a community hospital.
They also voted to push for extra money to bring Heatherwood up to standard.
Heatherwood's chief administrator, Mr Derek Fairman, said he would welcome a new hospital for Bracknell if it would relieve the pressure on the district general hospital
Extract Bracknell & Wokingham Times 04/10/1979

 

Mums To Be In Hospital Food Row

By Russell Jenkins
Expectant mothers at Heatherwood Hospital launched a protest over food last week. Kitchen boss Mrs Paulette Harvey had to face criticisms from the maternity ward patients after complaints about the standard of food.
Tempers grew heated and insults began flying in the ward.
Now hospitals chiefs are to meet kitchen and nursing staff next week to resolve the problem.
The maternity ward's complaints built up until last Wednesday when Mrs Harvey, who arrived at the hospital four months ago, met the expectant mothers face to face.
Sandwiches
She was told: Pregnant women have to have sandwiches brought in from outside the hospital; the food is cold when it reaches the patients; the meals are badly cooked and are often left untouched on their way to the pig's swill; the food turns up late and special diet patients do not get the food they order.
This week the district catering manager Mr Jack Merritt hit back at the criticisms. At Heatherwood the kitchen staff have eight kitchen vacancies but they still have to cook more than 440 lunches as well as breakfasts and lunches, Mr Merritt said. It is the responsibility of the nursing staff to serve the meals, he said. Under the previous catering manager, Mr Anthony Atkinson, the hospital won good food accolades from Egon Ronay and Mr Merritt said: "When Mrs Harvey took over the cooks remained the same and the menus remained unchanged."
Baby
Mrs Jackie Keevill, a patient who has just given birth to a second baby daughter, claimed: "There is a complaint to the staff just about every mealtime.
The food is cold and very badly cooked and there is an awful amount of waste. The poor women are left hungry.
A diabetic pregnant woman was served up two hours late with a wrong plate full of boiled rice and a boiled egg with its shell still on." Mrs Keevill alleged: "Mrs Harvey came down last week to ask what the problem was.
She just passed the buck and blamed the mis-directed meals on the ward sister for not telling her.
"After a while, Mrs Harvey turned around to a group of women and said 'A far as I'm concerned all pregnant women are freaks' and then stormed out. She also said we more or less asked to be brought to the hospital."
Mrs Harvey, is angry and bitter at having to take the blame for problems which arise outside her kitchen.
She admits she lost her temper when confronted by the pregnant mothers. Her report of the incident is now on the hospital secretary's desk.
Mrs Harvey, who spent five years supervising the kitchen at King Edward VII Hospital, Windsor, before coming to Heatherwood, said: "After listening to them calling me all the names under the sun, I shouted back and walked out.
They said they had special needs above those of other hospital patients and I did not agree.
I did call one woman freak, but I was provoked. They called me all sorts of things." "The problem has arisen because the nursing staff are not supervising the serving of meals. The nurses are not taking responsibility for checking the menu.
The dish of boiled rice and egg was meant for an Asian patient on a special diet but it was wrongly directed to the diabetic pregnant woman.
"I feel I'm taking the blame for something which is not my responsibility."
Cutbacks
Mr Merritt said that antiquated conditions and a break down in relations with the maternity ward nursing staff. allied to savage cutbacks on the catering purse have brought the kitchen problems to a head.
"The hospital service is dis-integrating because of the Government cuts," he said. "We feel as though we are sitting on a powder keg."
In the East Berkshire area alone, there are 50 vacancies in the hospital kitchens. Even so each new appointment is strictly vetted by the area health authority.
The total weekly budget for food is £6.60 per patient. "At the moment we are overspent. I cannot envisage a time when we will have a full kitchen staff here.
"Kitchen morale is going down day by day. We have lost so many staff we cannot afford to send out cooks and kitchen maids to help serve the meals.
The crunch has come because the maternity ward nurses do not help to get the food to the right patients.
Our responsibility really stops at the kitchen door." Heatherwood administrator, Mr Derek Fairman, said: " hope the problem will be resolved at next Tuesday's meeting. "Whether nurses should serve the meals in the wards is one of those borderline cases.
In my opinion they ought to but the senior nursing officer for the maternity ward says they should not."
Relieving nurses of non nursing jobs, says Mr Fairman, has been a contentious issue for some time.
He pointed out that the wards as well as the kitchen suffer from staff shortages.
Extract Bracknell Times 04/10/1979

 

Hot Words Over Cold Food

by Adam McKinlay
It would appear that the hand that rocks the cradle has clobbered the kitchen establishment at Ascot Heatherwood Hospital. And what a to do!
Picture the pregnant scene as a covey of irate and very pregnant Mums, carrying all before them, swoop on kitchen manager Mrs Paulette Harvey and tell her in no uncertain terms that her food is not so hot, or words to that effect.
The ladies complain that the food is sometimes badly cooked, or cold when it reaches them.
They add that special diets are not always properly delivered, and that generally the whole darned system and the food that comes out of Mrs Harvey's kitchen is not to their liking.
Consider the courage of Mrs Harvey, who left the comfort and safety of her kitchen establishment to challenge the ladies on their own ground, in this case the maternity ward.
Worse than that, Mrs Harvey admits she lost her temper as she was bombarded with verbal abuse.
Voices were raised in anger as the drama unfolded, and Mrs Harvey yelled: "As far as I am concerned all pregnant women are freaks." Dear oh dear. Such language. What a thing to say!! How unfair. Freaks indeed!
Irrational
Apart from the sanctity of motherhood and all that, the mind of a fond Dad boggles at such a statement. As one many times blessed with a pregnant wife I have observed some little idiosyncrasies', the odd irrational remark, perhaps a tear or two on occasions.
One noted that with one week to go the little woman was moving all the furniture in the house round with great regularity and always between two and three o'clock in the morning.
At the same time of day in the month of January one attempted to satisfy a craving for bananas and ice cream either before or after bacon butties.
One also sped off and collected mother-in-law as a matter of urgency, only to return her a couple of hours later because she was getting on the otherwise steely nerves of the mother-to-be.
Any suggestion of freakishness at such a time is quite uncalled for.
Mrs Harvey's behaviour was quite astonishing. Almost freakish yes, but there was no need for such a confrontation. She could have turned the other cheek, or better still run the other way. Pregnant ladies are not freaks. According to my dictionary freak is defined in one way as Caprice, vagary, capriciousness; product of sportive fancy. Does that fit your pregnant missus chaps?
Inevitable
Mrs Harvey blames the Heatherwood maternity ward nursing staff for not properly supervising the serving of meals, which is a bit thin, if inevitable. Even the plumbing faults are blamed on the nurses.
District Catering Manager Mr Jack Merritt cleared his pitch this week by saying that the Heatherwood kitchen is eight staff light. He added that it was the responsibility of the nursing staff to serve meals. The "you in your small corner and I in mine" syndrome.
It won't do, Jack. This chain of command waffle is not much good if the leader doesn't take a look right down the line at least occasionally.
Perhaps if Mr Merritt left the comfort of his office to see to it that Mrs Harvey was coping, and if not why not, there would not be all this hoo-hah.
I know Heatherwood well, although I admit I have not tasted the joys of the maternity ward. It It is a a well-run hospital suffering at the moment from central government's crazy desire to introduce some sort of corporate structure to run hospital's on so-called business lines.
On the various occasions I have given Heatherwood doctors the opportunity to exercise their scalpels on Old Adam's anatomy, I found the treatment superb and the catering of a high standard."
Obvious
(There is also a damned good chance that I shall land back in there one day! Creep? Freak? Maybe, but no fool!) Even Egon Ronay gave Heatherwood catering good class hotel status, which be can't bad. It seems pretty obvious that there is an organisational problem here, and that the air has been well and truly cleared.
To the great credit of the hospital my reporter was given every facility to report the opinions of everyone concerned.
It was his his first experience of interviewing pregnant mums en-masse. I asked him if he thought they were "freaks."
With the glazed look of one who has had a special insight into a new kind of violence he said (the coward) not freaks, just different in a powerful sort of way.
Serves me right for sending a bachelor to a maternity ward. This, I hope, is a storm in a teacup that needed bringing to light. It is to be hoped that Mr Merritt will sort it out and sharpish, If, as he says, the conditions are antiquated then it is up to him to handle the problem. Catering officers are now well paid employees with a job to do. It is not enough to sit back and play the popular game of blaming government cuts.
Mr Merritt says there has been a break down in relations between the maternity ward nursing staff and the kitchens because of cutbacks on the catering purse.
"The hospital service is disintegrating because of Government cuts. We feel as though we are sitting on a powder keg," he said.
Lesson
I suggest that Mr Merritt makes a move before he gets blown up. It seems that obvious to me. If he waits for someone moving the keg from under him he is showing a distinct lack of initiative to say the least.
There is no need for the hospital authorities to make a meal of this incident, and use it as an excuse for beating a big political drum.
As for the bold Paulette Harvey, I think she has learned a salutary lesson, and next time she has a verbal punch-up with preggers lady she contents herself with calling her Mum!
Limitations
I might be a bit of chauvinist freak, but I know my limitations when it comes to crossing the bows of the Lady Pregnant. Tell you what fellas (or lassies) I have a bottle of champagne for the best true pregnancy story that is unusual if not necessarily freakish. Good old hilarious Heatherwood.
Wish I had said it department: Contrary to male sentimentality and psychology, the confrontation of a hostile crowd, to a woman, is like a tonic. - William Bolitho 1890-1930.
Extract Bracknell Times 04/10/1979

 

Fund-raiser

Royal Ascot Young Conservatives will be staging their own colourful and fun-packed event. Their sponsored walk will be three legged and in fancy dress. They hope to raise half the cost of a £850 electro cardiograph machine for Heatherwood Hospital.
The course, from The Dog and Partridge pub in Sunninghill to Heatherwood Hospital, is about 2 and three quarters miles long and will take the walkers through woods and fields.
Friends and nurses from Heatherwood will be joining the YCs.
The walk will start at 10.30am.
Anyone who wants to join in or sponsor a walker should contact Clare Rosefield on Winkfield Row 3305 after 6pm.
Extract Bracknell Times 04/10/1979

 

Chairman Gets A Taste of Heatherwood Treatment

Ascot Round Table chairman Mr Richard Audsley got a taste of hospital treatment from Heatherwood Hospital Sister Angela Fowke last week. After a presentation by the Table of two crash trolleys, Mr Audsley tried out one of the conveyances for size and immediately had his pulse taken by sister.
The table raised a mammoth £2,750 for the trolleys at their regular money spinning events.
Extract Bracknell & Wokingham Times 11/10/1979

Comment:- The above article was accompanied by a photo of the presentation.
Copyright prevents us from displaying the photo here.

 

Call to Ease Nurse Shortage

By Stephen Double
Wards at Ascot's Heatherwood Hospital could be operating "below danger level" due to a nurse shortage, a local councillor claimed this week.
And the hospital's chief administrator admitted there was a staff shortage which forced them to bring in private nurses.
South Ascot Conservative councillor Michael Brooker, this week told Windsor and Maidenhead Council's housing committee that lack of staff mobility between East Berkshire's hospitals was to blame.
"Heatherwood has been forced to take work from Wexham Park Hospital near Slough, which is under staffed," said Coun Brooker.
"But its attempts to recruit additional staff to do that new work within the present financial limits has met with total failure.
"There are now certain wards operating well below the danger level."
Problem
Heatherwood's chief administrator Mr Derek Fairman said: "We are short of staff and are engaging nursing agencies to help out.
"It is more expensive, but we are hoping to recruit sufficient numbers by advertising in the local press and national nursing papers.
"It is a nationwide problem, one which we have had for a consider- able time and a situation which has been developing for years."
Attract
At the moment Heatherwood is short of 20 nurses of all grades, with 220 nurses instead of the full staff of 240.
After the committee meeting Coun Brooker said: "As with many other hospitals I suspect that from time to time Heatherwood is seriously understaffed.
"Even though Heatherwood is 20 nurses short that is still nine per cent below establishment.
I regard that as low and I want a programme to put that right. "Do we do enough to attract nurses in terms of pay? They work unsocial hours, and are nursing staffs administered in line with normal industrial relations?" "I understand that a nurse is not allowed to have a cup of tea in the ward.
Coun Brooker felt the health service had become top heavy with administration and his own party's cut backs in public spending was not to blame for the situation.
"I do think the NHS needs looking into very closely. We ought to make sure we scrap areas of bureaucracy." he said."
"There is no doubt there has got to be cuts. The NHS is an easy area for people to say 'It's life or death.' I am advised the cuts will not cause death.
"There will be prolonged discomfort for some but there is no question of anybody dying.
"It is necessary to make sure our house keeping is 100 per cent and we are getting the very best for our money.
"Is anybody going to tell me there is no waste in public services? The only area I would not accept cuts in would be defence."
Extract Bracknell Times 25/10/1979

 

Toys and cash help charities

The annual presentation of toys, dolls and other gifts from the Transport and Road Research Laboratory staff for orphans and other children's charities was made last week. The director of TRRL, Mr Alec Silverleaf, made the presentation to Mr R. Jones, Chief Welfare Officer of the environment and transport departments.
Of the nearly 200 toys, most were made, dressed and contributed by staff at TRRL.
In addition more than £122 from a staff collection was handed over.
Local charities to receive gifts are Heatherwood Hospital, Ascot; Larchwood Home, Bracknell, and Berkshire County Council in care Homes, Bracknell.
Extract Bracknell & Wokingham Times 22/11/1979

Comment:- The above article was accompanied by a photo entitled "Transport of delight" Mr Ron Jones (left) is handed the gifts by TRRL director Mr Alec Silverleaf.
Copyright prevents us from displaying the photos here.

 

Easthampstead W I

Guest speaker at the November meeting was Miss, Silk, who was accompanied by' her 10 year old guide dog Beauty.
The theme of her talk was the history of the guide dog movement, and she described how the dogs are trained.
Afterwards members heard that £104 had been raised in the Autumn Fayre held in October.
The money will be used to purchase four folding beds for the children's ward at Heatherwood Hospital.
Extract Bracknell Times 06/12/1979

 

Those old Infirmary Blues

Little Benjamin Standing had an attack of Christmas Day blues when Times photographer Andy Sherwill visited the children's ward at Ascot's Heatherwood Hospital to catch a glimpse of the seasonal fun.
Everyone was in festive mood, except 21 month old Ben and he soon cheered up once the cameras were off him.
The ward was gaily decorated with balloons, tinsel and cards, and nurses on duty made sure that all the children had a smashing Christmas, even though they had to spend it in hospital.

Extract Bracknell Times 27/12/1979

Comment:- The above article was accompanied by a photo.
The photo Pictured here are (left to right): Andrew Bryan, Mark Neville, Nurse Sally Walters, Clare Bryan, Nurse Teresa Byrne, Sister Kathleen Powell, Nurse Sandy Patterson with Ben Yousef Mahmoud and Nurse Maggie Page.
Copyright prevents us from displaying the photos here.

  Diary Jan to June 1979