Graeme’s Column

Over the past few days, a number of parents have been in touch – anxious, upset, and confused by stories claiming that Ninewells Hospital could lose its neonatal unit.

That concern is perfectly understandable. When you’re talking about the care of premature and unwell babies, any hint of change feels frightening.

But those headlines don’t tell the truth. Ninewells is not losing its Neonatal Unit.

There is no closure planned, no date for any change, and Ninewells will continue to provide vital neonatal care for almost every local baby who needs it.

What’s really happening is a plan drawn up by the doctors and nurses who do this work every day – not by politicians or civil servants – to make sure that the smallest and sickest babies in Scotland get the safest possible start in life.

This week, the people who actually deliver that care felt they had to step in. The neonatal nurses at Ninewells took to social media to set the record straight.

They explained that while a new national model of neonatal care was agreed last year, it hasn’t yet been implemented – and even when it is, there will still be a Neonatal Unit in Dundee.

They set out the facts clearly: every year, around 470 babies from Tayside are cared for in the Neonatal Unit or NICU at Ninewells.

Under the new model, around ten of those – the most premature and fragile – will begin life in one of three super-specialist centres in Aberdeen, Edinburgh or Glasgow before coming back home once they’re strong enough. Ten babies. Not hundreds.

This isn’t about saving money, it’s about saving lives.

Scotland’s leading neonatal clinicians, backed by the relevant professional bodies, have shown that survival rates improve when the tiniest and sickest babies receive their earliest care in large, specialist units. Places staffed around the clock by the most highly trained neonatal doctors and nurses, with every subspecialist team on hand when seconds matter.

That’s what this change is designed to achieve.

The dedicated nurses and doctors at Ninewells are doing incredible work every day in one of the most modern neonatal environments in the country, thanks to a recent multi-million pound refurbishment funded by the Scottish Government.

They shouldn’t have to spend their time correcting misinformation. They deserve our thanks, not the cheap point-scoring of those irresponsibly trying to frighten parents.

When nurses have to speak up just to stop panic spreading, it says more about our politics than it ever will about our NHS.