With Dave Pidduck
Leader of Barrow Borough Council

Last updated at 11:53, Friday, 01 June 2012

THERE will be no rant in this month’s column, following my comments on motorists who park on the pavement as I look out of my front room window I can see, yes you’ve guessed it, two cars parked on the pavement. So much for the power of the press!

DAVE PIDDUCK

Last week I was ill. That’s not a plea for sympathy, it is a statement of fact. Well it is a plea for sympathy, and men who are ill will understand what I mean. After all we have all had man flu at some stage in our lives. I was advised, persuaded and eventually threatened by my wife and daughter that I needed to go to hospital and that simply going for a lay down was not going to provide a cure.

So begins a new role for me a patient in the National Health Service, now I may get technical or should it be medical with some descriptions, you know the kind of medical teams, that thingy they put in your hand that delivers drugs or my case antibiotics. Time spent in A & E, the transfer to the MAU and finally to Ward 5 - see how easily one slips into medical terms.

From the moment the paramedics arrived the professionals took over, calming a slightly concerned patient while carrying out their initial tests. The nurses who looked after me in A & A and the doctors who did the diagnosis. The nurses on MAU and of course the consultant all highly professional and not forgetting the ladies who served the meals. So onto Ward 5 and the same high level of professionalism from all the staff. Now my reader will be saying that’s what I would expect from the staff of our hospital and up to a point that’s right. However, when you are in hospital and starting to feel better, you’ve read your newspaper or book, you have time to sit and watch. The level of care I witnessed by the staff on patients, who unlike me were ill, was just magical or any other word my feeble mind cannot think of.

I have from time to time talked about the importance of our Health Service as a partner in the wider context of the Borough and it is important that all of us support Furness General, especially if services become under threat or another hospital tries to remove services in order to change their role.

The Health Authority must have at the top of their agenda the fact that we are to a certain extent an isolated community and that means we need the greatest range of services in our hospital.

Finally, before my reader falls asleep in their armchair - good news! The Borough has received £5.2m this week from various Government funds and all being well Hindpool gets a new build for St James and Barrow Island gets a major building project.

First published at 11:52, Friday, 01 June 2012
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk