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Father delivered baby after partner was turned away from NHS hospital - TWICE
By ARTHUR MARTIN - More by this author »

Last updated at 18:04pm on 17th October 2007


During a difficult pregnancy, Elizabeth Jones was monitored every day because doctors were worried about the health of her baby.

But on the day of the birth, she was twice turned away from the hospital because it was full - forcing her partner to deliver the baby himself at their home.


Anthony Jones and Elizabeth with newborn Emily and their other daughter Bethanne

Miss Jones, 24, and her partner Anthony Jones - who coincidentally share the same surname - dashed to their local maternity unit when she started to have strong contractions.


However, their excitement at the prospect of the birth soon turned to horror when staff on the ward told them: "Sorry we are full. Come back later."


Medics at the Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend, near Cardiff, insisted the baby would not arrive for hours and suggested the couple go and have a cup of coffee while they tried to free up a bed.


Three hours later, they returned to the hospital when Miss Jones's contractions became more frequent.


This time she was given a thorough examination by a midwife who confidently sent them away for the second time, telling them the baby was still "hours away".


Once again, the frustrated couple headed back to their home in Bridgend. But within minutes Miss Jones felt the baby arriving.


Her partner's 17-year-old daughter Kirsty called 999 and relayed instructions, as he delivered the baby himself on October 12 at 11am.


"It was a great experience - but at the time I wished we were in hospital in a controlled environment," Mr Jones, 39, said. "What if something had gone wrong?


"It's worrying that the only maternity hospital for miles around had to turn us away twice just while Elizabeth was in the last stages of labour.


"You hear so much about the NHS being under pressure but you would think that maternity would be a priority. Many things can wait for a later appointment - but never a baby.


"It's very worrying that they haven't got the facilities to do the job properly when you want it.

He added: "They need more beds and at least another ward at the hospital. We've been told that it's always getting full there. We turned out to be fine - the next family may not be so lucky."


During her pregnancy, Miss Jones became a regular visitor to the hospital because the baby was growing unusually slowly. She was given scans twice a week and was monitored by the maternity team on a daily basis.


But fortunately, her new-born, who has been named Emily, arrived without complications, weighing a healthy 6lb 8oz.


She said: "It was one big shock. I wanted to have her in the hospital after all the problems we had. I knew she was coming soon because the pain was strong.


"Anthony did a fantastic job - but it's not what we expected from the NHS. I was in too much pain to be too nervous."


Mr Jones is still exhilarated at the experience of delivering a baby, although he has no plans to switch careers just yet.


"It was so quick that I didn't have time to think about it," he said. "I was shocked but just had to get on with it. I was getting instructions on the phone from the 999 operator.


"I realised Emily was coming out and there was nothing to stop her now.

"I just saw Emily's head coming out as the paramedics arrived. But they said I was doing a good job and I should just carry on.

"I delivered her into the world with the paramedic standing by to help me if anything had gone wrong. But luckily it all went well and it was an amazing experience. We just feel very thankful that there weren't any complications."

The couple, who have a four-year-old daughter Bethanne, are campaigning to prevent other pregnant women from being turned away from the hospital.


A spokesman for the hospital said: "The maternity unit from time to time experiences peaks in demand and during the last 12 months we have seen an increase in births at the Princess of Wales Hospital.


"We can confirm that it was necessary for this unit to close recently for a short time to new maternity admissions due to the unit reaching full capacity."

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Panel recommends against giving young kids cold medicine
BY ANDREW BRIDGES The Associated Press

   WASHINGTON — The medicines long used by parents to treat their children’s coughs and colds don’t work and shouldn’t be used in those younger than 6, federal health advisers recommended Friday.
   The over-the-counter medicines should be studied further, even after decades in which children have received billions of doses a year, the outside experts told the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA isn’t required to follow the advice of its panels of outside experts but does so most of the time.
   “The data that we have now is they don’t seem to work,” said Sean Hennessy, a University of Pennsylvania epidemiologist, one of the FDA experts gathered to examine the medicines sold to treat common cold symptoms. The recommendation applies to medicines containing one or more of the following ingredients: decongestants, antihistamines and antitussives. It doesn’t apply to expectorants, though many of the medicines also contain that ingredient.
   The nonbinding recommendation is likely to lead to a shake-up in how the medicines — which have long escaped much scrutiny — are labeled, marketed and used. Just how and how quickly wasn’t immediately clear.
   “If the agency chose to restrict use in children 6 and under, that won’t necessarily lead to a ban on the products. It might lead to labeling that says ‘do not use,’ ” said Dr. John Jenkins, director of the FDA’s office of new drugs.
   Such labeling changes could take years to put in place, since the FDA would have to undertake a lengthy rule-making process. Jenkins suggested if the drug industry took it upon itself to make such changes, the FDA could use its enforcement discretion to allow it to do so more quickly than would be done otherwise.
   In fact, the Thursday-Friday meeting came just a week after the industry pre-emptively moved to eliminate sales of the nonprescription drugs targeted at children under 2.
   So what are parents to do if they choose to use the medicines, pending further action? Jenkins recommended they follow the directions when giving the medicines to their children, and use them only as directed. He also counseled they pay close attention to what ingredients the medicines contain and to ask a doctor if they have any questions.
   In two separate votes Friday, the panelists said the medicines shouldn’t be used in children younger than 2 or in those younger than 6. A third vote, to recommend against use in children 6 to 11, failed.
   Earlier, the panelists voted unanimously to recommend the medicines be studied in children to determine whether they work. That recommendation also would require the FDA to undertake a rule-making process to reclassify the medicines, since the ingredients they include are now generally recognized as safe and effective, which doesn’t require testing. Again, that process could take years, even before any studies themselves get under way.
   The panel’s advice dovetails with a petition filed by pediatricians that argued the over-the-counter medicines shouldn’t be given to children younger than 6, an age group they called the most vulnerable to potential ill effects. The American Academy of Pediatrics and other groups back the petition.
   But FDA officials and panelists agreed there’s no evidence they work in older children, either. Still, panelists held off from recommending against use in those 6 and older. And some said they feared such a prohibition wouldn’t eliminate use of the medicines by parents.
   “They will administer adult products to their children because they work for them or feel they work for them,” said the panel’s patient and family representative, Amy Celento of Nutley, N.J.
   The drug industry says the medicines, used 3.8 billion times a year in treating cold and cough symptoms in children, do work and are safe.
   “We worked very hard to present data to the panel and in some cases I felt as though they didn’t listen and when you are in that position, it’s tough,” Linda Suydam, president of the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, the trade group that represents over-the-counter medicines, told reporters. Suydam pledged the industry would study the medicines as recommended and try harder to educate parents to avoid overdoses that in rare cases have been fatal.
   Some of the drugs — which include Wyeth’s Dimetapp and Robitussin, Johnson & Johnson’s Pediacare and Novartis AG’s Triaminic products — have never been tested in children, something flagged as long ago as 1972 by a previous FDA panel.
   An FDA review found just 11 studies of children published over the last half-century. Those studies did not establish that the medicines worked in those cases, according to the agency.
   For the most part, the results from tests in adults have been extrapolated to determine whether the medicines work in children. But even that evidence is “modest at best,” said panel chairwoman Dr. Mary Tinetti of Yale University School of Medicine. Indeed, all but one of the 22 panelists then voted to say that extrapolation is unacceptable.
   The panel also recommended drug makers provide standardized droppers with their liquid cough and cold medicines. Experts had told the panel the sometimes hardto-use dosing devices contribute to parents unwittingly overdosing their children.  

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Some of the drugs — which include Wyeth’s Dimetapp and Robitussin, Johnson & Johnson’s Pediacare and Novartis AG’s Triaminic products — have never been tested in children, something flagged as long ago as 1972 by a previous FDA panel.
   An FDA review found just 11 studies of children published over the last half-century. Those studies did not establish that the medicines worked in those cases, according to the agency.
   For the most part, the results from tests in adults have been extrapolated to determine whether the medicines work in children. But even that evidence is “modest at best,” said panel chairwoman Dr. Mary Tinetti of Yale University School of Medicine. Indeed, all but one of the 22 panelists then voted to say that extrapolation is unacceptable.

Quoted from JoAnn

I gave decongestants to my kids when they were small, under the supervison of Dr. Mele, and they did work. And that was after the chicken soup didn't.

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Berger plan ruining health care in New York state

Re the Oct. 25 article on Stephen Berger [chairman of the Berger Commission]: I agree that his reputation belongs on the toxic site. As for him making no apologies, he should be ashamed of himself. You can’t resurrect a broken health system by harming the people of the state. As for making the best judgments for the system overall, who decided this?
   Berger said that the restructuring was not about money but strengthening hospitals that needed it. He also said the insurance reimbursement system is next. I have a question then: How does downsizing the Ann Lee Home help hospitals or people of the area or strengthen hospitals? Hospitals are saying they are backlogged, with patients waiting nursing home care.
   Private nursing homes need only pick the cream of the crop, so where do our residents go? Out of county? Out of state? How does this help our residents? Many have little or no families who can travel to visit them and monitor their care.
   Good, strong home health care is almost nonexistent and will be not be available for many years. Is this Mr. Berger’s aim, to just turn his back on the many people who need the assistance of Albany County Nursing Home? As for local governments’ concerns, all they care about is the almighty buck, and running a large nursing home is costly.
   I suppose it is cheaper to send our people out of state. Then government does not have to pay for staffing, pension, health, etc. However it is our residents and families who will pay the ultimate price.
   It is sad to know that people, both elderly and young and needy, are not worth New York’s government time or money. I guess we truly are a “throwaway society!” When people get sick, have mental health issues or elderly, we will just “send them away!” How nice!
   I would love to meet with Mr. Berger and see how he explains cutting the very much-needed Albany County Nursing Home into less than half the size the Department of Health approved five years ago. Money? Politics?
   Too bad you are not on the election slate, Mr. Berger, but those who turned their backs and supported you are. I hope people remember this on Election Day.
   JUNE MANISCALCO
   Colonie  

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Good, strong home health care is almost nonexistent and will be not be available for many years.

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Study: CT scans raise cancer risk
Children may be needlessly getting dangerous radiation
BY MARILYNN MARCHIONE The Associated Press

   Millions of Americans, especially children, are needlessly getting dangerous radiation from “super X-rays” that raise the risk of cancer and are increasingly used to diagnose medical problems, a new report warns.
   In a few decades, as many as 2 percent of all cancers in the United States might be due to radiation from CT scans given now, according to the authors of the report.
   Some experts say that estimate is overly alarming. But they agree with the need to curb these tests particularly in children, who are more susceptible to radiation and more likely to develop cancer from it.
   “There are some serious concerns about the methodology used,” but the authors “have brought to attention some real serious potential public health issues,” said Dr. Arl Van Moore, head of the American College of Radiology’s board of chancellors.
   The risk from a single CT, or computed tomography, scan to an individual is small. But “we are very concerned about the built-up public health risk over a long period of time,” said Eric J. Hall, who wrote the report with fellow Columbia University medical physicist David J. Brenner.
   It was published in today’s New England Journal of Medicine and paid for by federal grants.
   The average American’s total radiation exposure has nearly doubled since 1980, largely because of CT scans. Medical radiation now accounts for more than half of the population’s total exposure; it used to be just one-sixth, and the top source was the normal background rate in the environment, from things like radon in soil and cosmic energy from the sun.
   A previous study by the same scientists in 2001 led the federal Food and Drug Administration to recomways to limit scans and risks in children.
   But CT use continued to soar. About 62 million scans were done in the U.S. last year, up from 3 million in 1980. More than 4 million were in children.
   Since previous studies suggest that a third of all diagnostic tests are unnecessary, that means that 20 million adults and more than 1 million children getting CT scans are needlessly being put at risk, Brenner and Hall write.
   Ultrasound and MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, scans often are safer options that do not expose people to radiation, they contend.
   CT scans became popular because they offer a quick, relatively cheap and painless way to get 3D pictures so detailed they give an almost surgical view into the body. Doctors use them to evaluate trauma, belly pain, seizures, chronic headaches, kidney stones and other woes, especially in busy emergency rooms. In kids, they are used to diagnose or rule out appendicitis.
   But they put out a lot of radiation. A CT scan of the chest involves 10 to 15 millisieverts (a measure of dose) versus 0.01 to 0.15 for a regular chest X-ray, 3 for a mammogram and a mere 0.005 for a dental X-ray.
   The dose depends on the type of machine and the person — obese people require more radiation than slim ones — and the risk accumulates over a lifetime.
   “Medical care in this country is naturally so fragmented. Any one doctor is not going to be aware of the fact that a particular patient has had three or four CT scans at some point in the past,” said Dr. Michael Lauer, prevention chief at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
   People with chronic problems like kidney stones are likely to get too many scans, said Dr. Fred Mettler, radiology chief in the New Mexico Veterans Administration health care system.
   “I’ve seen people who are 30 years old who have had at least 18 scans done,” he said.
   That puts them at risk of developing radiation-induced cancer, Brenner and Hall said. They base this on studies of thousands of Japanese atomic bomb survivors who had excess cancer risk after exposures of 50 to 150 millisieverts — the equivalent of several big CT scans.  

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But CT use continued to soar. About 62 million scans were done in the U.S. last year, up from 3 million in 1980. More than 4 million were in children.