One was the Victoria Crescent stabbings, another the time when the father of an autistic young man relayed to me the appalling fight that his family had endured. Most recently, I cried while talking to Dee Hansford, the mother of young Nixon Hansford, who spent the first six months of his life in Southampton Hospital after being born with a muscle disease that continues to baffle doctors.
Nixon’s story, which featured in this newspaper on Christmas Eve, when he was due to return home from hospital to spend Christmas with his family, was as inspiring as it was heart-breaking. His parents do not know what the future holds for their beautiful little boy, nor do the doctors. But
the parents’ commitment to their son, their strength and their determination were plain to see.
However, while it was upsetting, it was not Nixon’s story itself that moved me to tears. It was something his mother said during our interview, which was held just a few hours before the Channel Island Christmas Lottery was drawn. ‘If I win the Lottery,’ she told me, ‘I am going to buy a flat in Southampton for Jersey families to stay in.’
Dee then explained that during Nixon’s six months in Southampton, she and her husband had stayed in hotels, guest houses and short-term lets. Moving around and arranging accommodation added an extra element of stress to their situation, and because they didn’t know how long they would be there, they couldn’t plan ahead.
Unlike Jersey, the States of Guernsey own a flat in Southampton where islanders whose family members require treatment can stay.
I was reminded of Dee’s comments recently when Islanders Susan and Liam Stirling told this newspaper about their ‘worst ever Christmas’ stuck in a hotel room eating
Pot Noodles after having been denied a
bed at Southampton Hospital on Christmas Eve. Their nine-week-old baby, Deacon, needed a hernia operation and travel arrangements had been made by Jersey General Hospital.
Now delays will always happen and there will always be unforeseen circumstances, such as in this case when the operation had to be put off. But the States of Jersey have a duty of care to patients to do all that they can to make Islanders’ experience of travelling to the UK for treatment as stress-free as possible.
FOR this reason, Jersey needs to follow Guernsey’s lead and invest in a property in Southampton, which is the destination for all sorts of medical specialities for Channel Island patients.People like the Stirlings and the Hansfords would then be able to stay in it
if required, and would be able to maintain some privacy and sense of normality at a very difficult period in their lives.
It should not be left to people like Dee Hansford to pay for it, Lottery winnings or otherwise.
Health should add it to their list of priorities, and not in a bottom-of-the-list-so-we-can-forget-about-it kind of way.
One-bedroom apartments in Southampton cost from as little as £50,000, and it would not be money wasted. Rather, it would be an investment and would cut the cost of supporting families in Southampton, many of whom have to turn to charities to help them financially.
While there would of course be recurring costs, the original investment would be a
one-off that would benefit Islanders for years.
TO put it into perspective, an apartment costing, say, £100,000 represents less than 0.02 per cent of the States’ net revenue expenditure. It is far less than the £315,835 spent by the Economic Development department on PR between 2008 and 2012. It is just a fifth of what the States paid former chief executive Bill Ogley when he resigned.
Still not convinced? Consider, then, that last year the number of public-sector workers earning more than £100,000 increased by 33 on the year before to a total of 198.
This is at a time when the public sector is being reformed and made leaner, and when budgets are being cut.
And what about the referendum on States reform, and the Electoral Commission that led up to it? That cost the public purse £192,946? This figure included £91,408 spent on advertising, £27,624 on parish referendum expenses and £32,617 on staff.
You could have a good flat in Southampton for that.
If the Treasury Minister doesn’t think we have the money, we could sell off another couple of car number plates. Or we could
use the money left over from States Members who haven’t taken their pay rises for a number of years. Or we might even just
add it to the £250 million we will be
borrowing from external markets to
fund social housing.
It seems a very small price to pay for what would be an invaluable resource for Island families at what will be for many one of the most difficult times of their lives.
