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JUDICIAL review... Lisa-Louise Fitton with sons the late Dion and Jordan-Lee.
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Solicitors kick off legal battle
15/12/2006
A FAMILY fighting Rochdale Infirmary cuts in memory of their five-year-old son could be heading to the High Court.
Solicitors representing David and Lisa-Louise Fitton, whose son Dion died in October, have started proceedings against Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale Primary Care Trust (PCT) and four other local health trusts.
And the fight has been extended to a second family who fear the life of their seriously-ill son and other sick children will be put at risk if urgent accident and emergency care at the Infirmary is scrapped.
The Manchester law firm Pannone LLP claims health trusts failed to consult the public properly as part of the Healthy Futures consultation into A and E care.
It is asking the High Court to stop the provisional decision to cut urgent care at the Infirmary and order the trusts to run a 'full and open' consultation.
Both Dion Fitton and his six-year-old brother Jordan-Lee, from Smallbridge, were born with global development delay, which meant neither could walk or talk, and regularly attended the accident and emergency department for urgent treatment.
Bacup-based Elizabeth and Jason Heath, whose seven-year-old son Jack suffers from rare MPS II Hunters Syndrome, are also represented by the solicitors.
Just last weekend the youngster, whose debilitating and incurable condition affects his mobility, speech and physical development, had to be resuscitated by doctors.
Mrs Heath said: "I'm absolutely disgusted and horrified that they're putting Jack's and other children's lives in danger.
"Do they not think that parents who have terminally ill children have got enough stress and upset in their lives without having to worry about which hospital their child's going to be taken to when they need to be resuscitated?
"My child is going to be dead before he gets to a hospital."
Pannone LLP issued proceedings against Heywood Middleton and Rochdale PCT, as well as Manchester, Oldham, Bury and East Lancashire PCTs, and said the consultation procedures which led to the decision to close services were flawed at the outset.
Richard Scorer, a partner at Pannone, said: "The closure has a direct bearing on six-year-old Jordan-Lee Fitton, a severely disabled and very poorly little boy, whose parents David and Lisa-Louise will face a half-hour trip to the nearest A and E department in Bury or Oldham if Rochdale closes."
A Healthy Futures spokeswoman said: "The High Court will now decide whether or not there are any grounds for a judicial review. It would therefore be inappropriate to comment further at this time."
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this family should not be having to argue there Chilterns right to life!!! shame on you NHS, shame on you PM,
STOP SPENDING OUR MONEY ON STUPID PROJECTS AND BLO**Y IMMIGRATION!!
22/02/2007 at 08:33