More On Mark
Posted on 2005-03-10
As I said in my last update about Mark the operation was a success, and during last weekend he continued to regain enough strength to enable him to come off the ventilator on Monday as his doctors had planned. However, despite his fragile state of health he has had to be transferred to a different hospital for the remainder of his treatment.
Great Ormond Street Hospital, where Mark was originally being treated, has been forced to close up to a fifth of its beds, cancel operations, close operating theatres and send children elsewhere for treatment because it has already treated more children than its �178 million budget allows.
GOSH is undoubtedly a fantastic children's hospital, and it's sad that such measures are having to be undertaken due to lack of funding, but everyone who is close to Mark is extremely grateful that his operation was permitted to go ahead. I just feel so sad for those children whose operations have had to be deferred until a later date, and I'm angry that things have had to come to this. I can't help feeling the government should have done more to prevent a situation like this from happening in the first place.
Anyway, I'm not going to turn this into a rant about the state of the NHS. Despite the success of his operation Mark is still a very sick little boy, but he was lucky to get his operation at all. He is getting better slowly but surely though, and that's what I have to remember.