A cross party delegation from Maidstone will accompany MASH to Downing St this morning to present thousands of signatures against the move of obstetric (doctor led maternity) services to Pembury from Maidstone. I will be joining Peter Carroll, Helen Grant, Rav Seerthrum, Maidstone's parliamentary candidates, plus Sarah Waters, local community campaigner, Heather, Mary and Anna.
Although I am a great supporter of midwifery led maternity care (child birth should not be medicalised unless there is a very good reason), it does seem strange to only have an obstetrics unit at Pembury rather than in Maidstone. Maidstone has much higher deprivation than Tunbridge Wells, a higher and younger population, and must have the greater number of births. The two sites are 17 miles apart, a route that takes around 40 minutes by car on a good day, an hour on the bus and two changes by train. Realistically, it would be better to have obstetrics provided at both sites.
Green Party campaigner in Kent. Also a nurse, academic, former manager, writer, Druid, husband and father...
Showing posts with label MASH. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MASH. Show all posts
Monday, 18 January 2010
Tuesday, 8 September 2009
I'll see your 25,000 letters and raise you 5,000
How many campaigns for the same thing does an area need?
Last week LibDem PPC launched his Full Maternity at Maidstone Campaign, saying that he is going to write to 20,000 women asking them to sign his petition to save the obstetric unit at Maidstone. This week Helen Grant is going for 5,000 more, writing to 25,000 women and pushing a pram from Maidstone to Pembury. To suggest that Helen is bandwagonning would be disingenous, MASH was formed last year to campaign for service to stay at Maidstone, however the timing of her actions are clearly suspect.
Obviously the campaigns are worthy in their own right (and I'm happy to sign either petition - or both), but they are just one example of what is wrong with modern politics. Where there is common cause, parties and candidates should work together, not duplicate efforts. Elections should be fought on issues, differences and policies, not on who can get the most publicity fighting from the same corner. I strongly suspect every PPC for Maidstone and the Weald thinks that Maidstone should keep it current range of services.
So all I need to do now is find 30,000 women in the constituency to write to and then I'll need to find a women in labour to push on a bed down the A26/A228... I wonder how Rav will beat that?
Last week LibDem PPC launched his Full Maternity at Maidstone Campaign, saying that he is going to write to 20,000 women asking them to sign his petition to save the obstetric unit at Maidstone. This week Helen Grant is going for 5,000 more, writing to 25,000 women and pushing a pram from Maidstone to Pembury. To suggest that Helen is bandwagonning would be disingenous, MASH was formed last year to campaign for service to stay at Maidstone, however the timing of her actions are clearly suspect.
Obviously the campaigns are worthy in their own right (and I'm happy to sign either petition - or both), but they are just one example of what is wrong with modern politics. Where there is common cause, parties and candidates should work together, not duplicate efforts. Elections should be fought on issues, differences and policies, not on who can get the most publicity fighting from the same corner. I strongly suspect every PPC for Maidstone and the Weald thinks that Maidstone should keep it current range of services.
So all I need to do now is find 30,000 women in the constituency to write to and then I'll need to find a women in labour to push on a bed down the A26/A228... I wonder how Rav will beat that?
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