HEALTH chiefs have set the record after a grandfather started up an online petition calling for the return of 24-hour paediatrics to Bronglais Hospital after the difficult birth of his first grandchild.

Simon Childs set up the petition on change.org 48 hours after granddaughter Evie was born at Haverfordwest’s Withybush Hospital – and as of Monday night it had attracted 1,333 signatures.

The petition states that the loss of the Bronglais SCBU “has had a completely negative and adverse impact on health care in Ceredigion and other areas covered by Bronglais, with many families being forced to travel for an hour or more to reach the health care they desperately need at Glangwili.

But Hywel Dda University Health Board’s Medical Director, Dr Philip Kloer, said: “We have read with concern some inaccurate comments on social media recently in response to an online petition which calls for ‘the return of 24-hour paediatrics to Bronglais General Hospital’. To be absolutely clear, Bronglais Hospital continues to have 24 hour, seven-day-a-week consultant led inpatient paediatric services.

“The petition makes reference to Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU/or neonatal) services at Bronglais Hospital and implies that babies from the Ceredigion area are transferred elsewhere in Wales as a direct consequence of changes to services in Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire in 2014. This is not the case.

"Whilst Bronglais Hospital has a joint consultant and midwife-led maternity unit, it does not have a SCBU and has never been a formal receiving hospital for special care babies.

"Clinical protocols are in place to minimise the potential for premature births at the hospital. In the event of a premature birth, facilities are available to stabilise and transfer babies either for special care at the SCBU in Carmarthen. Only babies requiring tertiary, specialist neonatal care are transferred to units in Swansea, Cardiff or Newport, as usual.

"These levels of neonatal services have never been available at any of the hospitals across the Hywel Dda University Health Board area.”