Week 20: Ultrasound Scans
The NHS recommend that mums get ultrasound scans twice during pregnancy, around the 13 and 20 week markers. The exact dates can vary from trust to trust. The NHS like to stress these are optional and are only offered. However, I’d like to have been “offered” a 20 week scan. But our NHS trust is run by penny-pinching busybodies.
Now I always thought the problem was a Scottish one, but this was my ignorance due to only having had experience of one NHS trust north of the border. It turns out it’s a Lothian problem.
The QIS arm of the NHS recommended that the second scan be given as standard, as a vehicle to check for growth and for any abnormalities forming. That report was submitted in February 2004.
23wk PRIVATE scanThe Fat Lady was 20 weeks gestation in April 2006, some 26 months after the recommendation. But there was no 20 week scan offered. Apparently the Lothian NHS trust is “awaiting guidance from the Scottish Executive on how to proceed”. I’m no medical expert but I do know a thing or two about processes. My view may be a little simplistic, but the process exists already to book a new mum in for the booking appointment, so it should be easy enough to tag on a second appointment for 6 weeks later at the same time, or even to make another appointment at the booking appointment when that shows a more accurate set of dates. I reckon I could, without any medical knowledge whatsoever, come up with the paperwork changes in a matter of hours.
The only reason I can comprehend for the refusal to comply is hard cash. And with the new Edinburgh Royal Infirmary having been built under the Private Finance Initiative I can’t see any easy solution while they have a massive “mortgage” over their heads. Even the car park is a bone of contention…
The scan here is at 23 weeks, done privately
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