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London: About 500 critically ill children and babies have been turned away from London hospitals because of a shortage of intensive care beds.
They were among almost 700 patients who have been diverted or transferred in the last 12 months, with many sent as far as Northampton, Brighton, Southampton, Cambridge, Hertfordshire and Kent.
A baby needing a special care cot and a heart and lung bypass machine was sent 650 kilometres to a hospital in Glasgow. A boy born prematurely died after he was taken 200 kilometres in an ambulance to Bristol.
Dr Bob Winter, president of the Intensive Care Society, said transfers of such distances put lives at "serious risk".
"Quite obviously the health of a critically ill person will deteriorate in the back of a moving ambulance," he said. "The bigger the distance travelled, the more dangerous the situation."
One junior doctor working in London, who did not wish to be named, said "The hospital situation is immensely distressing but the only solution is to get funds for more intensive care beds."
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