HC Deb 10 February 1988 vol 127 c365

4.7 pm

Mrs. Alice Mahon (Halifax)

I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Committee No. 20 for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely, the postponement today of a desperately needed heart operation for two-year-old Jason Pullen from Halifax, who is awaiting surgery in Killingbeck hospital, Leeds. The matter specifically relates to Jason, whose operation has been cancelled today. It is urgent because the child could die if he does not have the operation soon. It has had to be postponed four times because the hospital, whose staff are working under enormous pressure, cannot cope with the demand for cardiac surgery.

Only six of the 12 intensive care beds are in use, because the hospital cannot afford to employ enough skilled nurses to staff the rest of them. The surgeon, Duncan Walker, knows that life-saving operations are being restricted because of lack of funds, and he recently warned: increasing numbers of both children and adults will die on increasingly long waiting lists unless bottlenecks caused by lack of intensive care beds are relieved. The doctors and nurses at Killingbeck have raised £300,000 for intensive care facilities and they are asking only for funding to staff them. The region does not have the money to do so, because the Government have persistently refused to staff the unit adequately. Staff are being put in an impossible position; in the words of the consultant: It is a matter of fact. We are not speculating. People are now dying on our waiting list. Babies who are stable for the moment have to make way for acute emergencies, which often arise because those babies have been waiting too long on the waiting list.

Will Jason Pullen have to wait for his operation until his condition has so deteriorated that he is such an emergency himself, or will the Government give a commitment today that they will make sufficient funds available to end this dreadful lottery of who shall live and who shall die?

Mr. Speaker

The hon. Lady asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 20, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that she believes should have urgent consideration, namely, the lack of beds in the intensive care unit at Killingbeck hospital, resulting in the cancellation of heart surgery for Jason Pullen for the fourth time. I have listened with concern to what the hon. Lady has said. She knows that the only decision that I must take in looking at an SO 20 application is whether to give it precedence over the business set down for today or tomorrow. I regret that I cannot find the matter she has raised appropriate for discussion under Standing Order No. 20, and cannot therefore submit her application to the House.