https://news.sky.com/story/mum-of-baby-vanellope-born-with-heart-on-outside-ive-been-on-rollercoaster-11168888
The above link will take you to a news article from today where a baby has been born with her heart outside of her body and survived. This is fantastic news!!! a big well done to the teams involved in this and all the best wishes for the future of this little girl and her family. Miracles do happen.
I have written before about the stress and anxiety of expecting a baby, its a really worrying time for all involved and finding out at the 9 week scan means there's months and months or worry ahead before you can even see and hold the baby, then years of worry ahead. those who know me or have read my blog will be aware I have not experienced some of the worst case scenarios but I do try to empathise, and that's what I am trying to do here so please indulge me for the next paragraph as its all about me then I'll talk about others.
It was 2003 when my wife and I went for a scan at Good hope hospital, during this scan the mood changed a little as the scenographer spotted something. With the scan finished we met a consultant and had a very quick and blunt discussion about what was found, talk about worst case scenario, the scan had should some cysts on the baby's brain which can be associated with a number of syndromes including ultimately baby loss, of course the last part was the bit that we picked up on. every 2 weeks we were at Good Hope hospital for scans as our babies brain developed these cysts dissolved as part of normal development (I'm not a medic). The fear and stress at the time was horrendous but fortunately for us the baby was born healthy and well. So in trying to apply my experience in understanding the position of the family of the baby in the news all I can say is its incomprehensible and well done to them.
As time goes by we often lose contact with friends and relatives but every now an then paths will cross and it was only in the last 2 years that I was back in touch with someone who I had not spoken to for decades. I am only raising this because I'd like to use the above news story to raise a little awareness. This person has grown up (as we all have) and started a family, one of their children was also born with a heart problem, I understand part of the heart didn't develop and so its only partly working. I am not aware of all the details so please forgive my ignorance. Again I will say the stress and fears involved in this must be horrific and I admire their emotional resolve. Stories like this in the news and effecting people you know really brings it home and puts perspective on some of the issue we worry about daily. I'd never considered heart development in any of my children's development or any other part of my life before this, its just something that we all lock away and hope doesn't effect us.
So what can we do? Praise the teams who are making a difference and support them, families and charities who are involved in or affected by with this type of issue on a daily basis. one of which is www.chuf.org.uk who have raised tens of millions of pounds to support families and children affected by heart development issues.
The big thing is talking about these things and being aware. They a problem shared is a problem halved, emotionally it maybe or a conversation may just open a door to someone that they didn't know existed. I suppose what I'm saying is whilst this is a special case as the baby girl is the first in the UK to survive there are many others effected by embryonic development issues and we don't know or discuss them.
Once again Well done to the team involved in the case above and well done to the families staying strong facing life's challenges.
Wednesday, 13 December 2017
Friday, 8 December 2017
Green Bin charges, how did we end up here ?
Like many people in Tamworth I am not happy with the implementation of charging for garden waste to be collected. Yes I did vote for this in full council only a few months ago but this wasn’t a “put your hand up when you’re told we need this” it was in fact the position I had come to after many hours of contemplation and thought right up until just before the council meeting began. I thought that now the charge is imminent I’d share my thought processes.
Before I do I will just list a couple of facts about the charge.
1, the fee is £36 and this covers the calendar year regardless of when you pay within the next twelve months the renewal/repayment date will be December 2018 for 2019. So if you pay in June you get 6 months not 12.
2, it’s an annual fee, £36 for the year (not per collection as some have thought)
3, no one has to pay, if you don’t use your green bin you don’t pay.
4, the green bin service will cost around £250kpa extra due to changes to credits, it’s expected council will collect around £500kpa from the charges and I’ll pick up on what happens to the excess later.
So as I said I thought about this a lot and where did we come from to get here.
When I grew up we had metal dustbin about 90l capacity and a separate lid, everything could go in here including ashes from the fire in the lounge ( I wonder how we didn’t lose the lids?), then a Councillor by the name of John Garner came along and we moved into a privatised system with big black wheely Bins, Eventthing went on but not got ashes, and these were emptied weekly,
Back in 2004 the then labour council introduced a recycling scheme where black bins were empties fortnightly, dry recyclate was sorted curbside (in blue boxes and we did lose lids) and in Tamworth the green bin was born for garden waste and emptied fortnightly. Contract was signed for a July implementation at the May election there was a change of political leadership and the Conservatives were left as my neighbour at the time put it “getting the blame for something that’s not your fault”. Gosh remember the litter from curbside when the wind blew. This was also the time that John Garner came back on charge of waste management in Tamworth.
John like many of he conservative group was not happy with the fortnightly food waste collection and the curbside recycling methods, with John’s passion we had all sorts of presentations for invessel composting and the like where the council would buy the machinery and then sell the compost product afterwards. The financial return simply didn’t add up to cover the investment in the machinery. Ooh looks like someone has now recycled this idea and is claiming it as their own!!!! It didn’t stack up back then.
Anyway John found a solution and we moved to foodwaste in Black Bins and green, at last weekly food waste collections, but it was costing a fortune. John also lead us in creating the joint service with our neighbours in Lichfield, this was a cheaper service than external providers could supply and saw the end of the blue boxes from pre conservative days, we now had three big wheels Bins green black and blue. I remember these negotiations and remember the fight to keep the lichfield approach of charging for a second garden waste bin out of Tamworth.
In the history I’ve explained above the council had managed to negotiate actual millions of pounds worth of savings in the service and maintained the costs within everyone’s council tax bill.
This brings us to where we are now.
The costs of running services continues to increase as demand for different types of service increase and with the backdrop of reducing government hand outs to councils some difficult decisions have to be made. When I talk about increased demand I wan things like homelessness prevention and adult social care.
As I mentioned above changes to recycling credits will increase costs of the green bin service by around £200-£250k a year and is currently paid for by council tax contributions. Whether you use the green bin or not whether you live in a house of a flat your council tax is paying for those who use the garden waste collection service.
The council is expecting to generate around £500kpa from the charges, so half the charge pays for the service and generates a ‘saving’ in council tax expenditure and a the rest of the income will be used to support other vital service that we need to grow to support the vulnerable. There’s also some complex stuff about recycling credits in the coatings and surplus but the headline figures are about there.
So as ever where does the council get cash from? £80m budget with council tax income of £3.5m, it’s got to come from somewhere so things like industrial unit rents, non domestic rates contribution (after all other agencies have their cuts) car parks and charging for services, and this is where the decision came from. The collection of garden waste is not a statutory service and is therefore optional, the council have a number of options with it including continue as we are, cease the service, charge for it etc etc, in the same way the council charges for other services.
Wow that’s made it sound simple :( I’m still not happy we’re going down this line but what are the other options? Savings into the hundreds of thousands have been built into the budget over the years and will be again this year, underspends will be made and rolled back into the next year, gone are the days of “have budget will spend before year end”. I don’t want to see any vital services reduced to support new pressures, so whilst I’m not happy with the green waste charges I realise something has to give somewhere.
So it’s a green bin and £36 bill for me, unless I share it with a neighbour and spend £18 each.
Written on my phone not spell or grammar checked yet
Before I do I will just list a couple of facts about the charge.
1, the fee is £36 and this covers the calendar year regardless of when you pay within the next twelve months the renewal/repayment date will be December 2018 for 2019. So if you pay in June you get 6 months not 12.
2, it’s an annual fee, £36 for the year (not per collection as some have thought)
3, no one has to pay, if you don’t use your green bin you don’t pay.
4, the green bin service will cost around £250kpa extra due to changes to credits, it’s expected council will collect around £500kpa from the charges and I’ll pick up on what happens to the excess later.
So as I said I thought about this a lot and where did we come from to get here.
When I grew up we had metal dustbin about 90l capacity and a separate lid, everything could go in here including ashes from the fire in the lounge ( I wonder how we didn’t lose the lids?), then a Councillor by the name of John Garner came along and we moved into a privatised system with big black wheely Bins, Eventthing went on but not got ashes, and these were emptied weekly,
Back in 2004 the then labour council introduced a recycling scheme where black bins were empties fortnightly, dry recyclate was sorted curbside (in blue boxes and we did lose lids) and in Tamworth the green bin was born for garden waste and emptied fortnightly. Contract was signed for a July implementation at the May election there was a change of political leadership and the Conservatives were left as my neighbour at the time put it “getting the blame for something that’s not your fault”. Gosh remember the litter from curbside when the wind blew. This was also the time that John Garner came back on charge of waste management in Tamworth.
John like many of he conservative group was not happy with the fortnightly food waste collection and the curbside recycling methods, with John’s passion we had all sorts of presentations for invessel composting and the like where the council would buy the machinery and then sell the compost product afterwards. The financial return simply didn’t add up to cover the investment in the machinery. Ooh looks like someone has now recycled this idea and is claiming it as their own!!!! It didn’t stack up back then.
Anyway John found a solution and we moved to foodwaste in Black Bins and green, at last weekly food waste collections, but it was costing a fortune. John also lead us in creating the joint service with our neighbours in Lichfield, this was a cheaper service than external providers could supply and saw the end of the blue boxes from pre conservative days, we now had three big wheels Bins green black and blue. I remember these negotiations and remember the fight to keep the lichfield approach of charging for a second garden waste bin out of Tamworth.
In the history I’ve explained above the council had managed to negotiate actual millions of pounds worth of savings in the service and maintained the costs within everyone’s council tax bill.
This brings us to where we are now.
The costs of running services continues to increase as demand for different types of service increase and with the backdrop of reducing government hand outs to councils some difficult decisions have to be made. When I talk about increased demand I wan things like homelessness prevention and adult social care.
As I mentioned above changes to recycling credits will increase costs of the green bin service by around £200-£250k a year and is currently paid for by council tax contributions. Whether you use the green bin or not whether you live in a house of a flat your council tax is paying for those who use the garden waste collection service.
The council is expecting to generate around £500kpa from the charges, so half the charge pays for the service and generates a ‘saving’ in council tax expenditure and a the rest of the income will be used to support other vital service that we need to grow to support the vulnerable. There’s also some complex stuff about recycling credits in the coatings and surplus but the headline figures are about there.
So as ever where does the council get cash from? £80m budget with council tax income of £3.5m, it’s got to come from somewhere so things like industrial unit rents, non domestic rates contribution (after all other agencies have their cuts) car parks and charging for services, and this is where the decision came from. The collection of garden waste is not a statutory service and is therefore optional, the council have a number of options with it including continue as we are, cease the service, charge for it etc etc, in the same way the council charges for other services.
Wow that’s made it sound simple :( I’m still not happy we’re going down this line but what are the other options? Savings into the hundreds of thousands have been built into the budget over the years and will be again this year, underspends will be made and rolled back into the next year, gone are the days of “have budget will spend before year end”. I don’t want to see any vital services reduced to support new pressures, so whilst I’m not happy with the green waste charges I realise something has to give somewhere.
So it’s a green bin and £36 bill for me, unless I share it with a neighbour and spend £18 each.
Written on my phone not spell or grammar checked yet
Monday, 25 September 2017
Baby Loss Awareness Week
I was updating this blog and have posted early, baby loss week this year is 9-15th October 2017
I have to be honest I wasn't aware that this week was baby loss awareness week until I stumbled across this article.
This entry is not a rant or suggestion its just simply a note which might be thought provoking, for information please use the Sands website
Before I write this there are a few things I should just mention, I am a bloke so don't have a mothers perspective, I am lucky enough not to have experienced the loss of a child and I have seven children, BUT this does not mean I can not sympathise and empathise with those have suffered such a tragic loss. During this blog I may refer to other people but will try as much as possible to keep them anonymous and not give away their identity,
100 babies die every week just before, during or shortly after birth.
In 2008 it was 17 per day, by 2013 this had dropped to 16.
I remember being about 11 when a relative excitedly announced that they were to have their first child, a few months later at Easter the couple were watching film (may have been Clash of the titans) when the expectant mother began to suffer a miscarriage. As a family we visited the the old general hospital at Burton on Trent (long since knocked down) to see the couple. This was the first time I had known of this sort of thing and had loads of questions I didn't ask, to be honest I remember not wishing to talk about any of it. For me being an 11 year old I just took it for granted that women became pregnant and then a baby was born , All nice and simple and safe.
Since being 11 I have learnt a lot and have first hand experience of looking at a scan screen and seeing some shapes but not a heart beat or movement. Then spending time with my wife either at hospital or at home recovering. During my working life I have worked in photo processing shops where I have developed and printed photos taken by family members in hospital of babies which didn't make it, this being one of their few memories of that child (only once did I get warned what I was about to see). I also know of two families who have had still births or suffered neo-natal deaths, the whole thing scares me.
Pregnancy , birth and infancy are really really dangerous times in life and we so often take it for granted that everything will be ok. We take it for granted that baby and mother will all be ok. Earlier this year on my sons birthday I posted the below on my facebook wall, detailing one of our experiences with childbirth.
8 years ago 19th June Oliver was born, I woke up to Nicola telling me the baby was coming and she had called the midwife, We arranged for Chloe . Ellesse , Bethany and Thomas to go to school (or nursery). At just gone 9am Oliver was born, over 9lb, at home in the lounge, mom and baby went up to have a bath and came back to the lounge. About 2 hours after the birth the midwives were packing up to leave when Nicola's heart stopped beating.her blood pressure plummeted as well as every vital.
With the student midwife I packed a case and got Oliver in a baby seat, as Nicola was loaded into an ambulance I loaded Oliver into the car, I got to Good Hope before the ambulance and waited in room 1 with Oliver for 30minutes for Nicola to arrive, telling him Mommy is coming its all ok, he was 3 hours old.
Thankfully with some medical care, drips and oxygen all was ok Nicola was revived and recovered. We have had 2 more kids since. Well done both, happy birthday Oliver and thank you Nicola.
As I mentioned I have not experienced a still birth or neo-natal death and can't imagine the feeling I can only compare it to the emotional blow when looking at those screens in the darkened clinical scan room and seeing no movements, no heart beat. All of this following the euphoria of finding out you're having a baby and then suddenly you're not. To go full term must be absolutely horrific and a destructive emotional force.
I can only imagine the pain of having spent so much care, time, money, effort, emotion on health, a nursery baby clothes, prams, car seats, pushchairs etc and then having to face the emotional loss of having lost all that happiness.
I have seen 2 families go through this, both for different reasons and both dealt with it in different ways, 1 family I have to say amaze me in how well they have coped with both the event and life afterwards and I often find myself wondering how they have been so strong.
In similar ways to Mr Quince, MP for Colchester, discusses in the BBC article the first family's unborn baby had passed away at a very late stage in pregnancy leading to the mother having to give birth to her baby. The trauma this caused was horrific. . This was over 10 years ago and around the time when my wife was pregnant. their eldest daughter at the time went to school with our eldest and so everyday at the school gates updates on the pregnancy were shared and then the devastation came. My wife did everything she could to help this couple and whilst we ll go our separate ways we still stay in touch. They have gone on to have more children and as far as I am aware they still have a photo of their little girl in their lounge. for a young couple at the time this could have easily destroyed everything they have and its a credit to them that they didn't let it.
The second family suffered from a neo-natal death shortly after birth, I do not know this couple as well as I did the first however my wife has become quite friendly and chat regular, this couple have other children and have had one since, a rainbow baby, The strength that they have shown has been tremendous. The lady I refer to here works with children and when she found she was pregnant she obviously had to tell the children she worked with at the time including one of my children, so as a result the whole of her pregnancy time was shared with these children who at a young age were quite excited about this. I do not know the details around the loss but I do know the death was shortly after birth, a matter of hours and do remember hearing the news a few hours after it happened. the family were as you would imagine devastated as were the children she worked with.
Not being close to the family I don't know much about this time. what I do know is that this lady had to return to work after a maternity break, Here she would have to face the children she worked with prior to taking time off and of course have to face their questions and inquisitive/naive insensitivity's. I know my child took flowers to her, in particular a flower that she associates with her lost child. at the time I thought how on earth does she cope with both inquisition and acts of kindness from children without breaking down. I really don't know how she did it,
The family i refer to here have gone on to have a baby since and so this lady has not only had to face the fear created by what happened but she has again had to do it in front of the same children she works with. There are some amazing people in the world and i have total admiration for this couple, who whilst still mourning and remembering their loss have shown how life must go on,
To have the euphoria of a new baby stolen by a tragic event like these is a horrific thought that I would hate to happen to anyone.
This happens 100 times a week! Some people can talk about it some people can't, I know of relatives who have never spoken about it happening to them 30 years on.
This is a sensitive issue and I repeat what I said at the top
I am a bloke so don't have a mothers perspective, I am lucky enough not to have experienced the loss of a child and I have seven children, BUT this does not mean I can not sympathise and empathise with those have have suffered such a tragic loss. during this blog I may refer to other people but will try as much as possible to keep them anonymous and not give away their identity,I don't think I have actually said much here just contemplated and typed as I've gone along.
I have included 2 links below, The Sands Charity web page for information and would recommend a visit to the National Arboretum SANDS memorial garden, its a place to think.
SANDS
National memorial Garden
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