Julie Morgan MP

Julie joins Theo Walcott at launch of Breastfeeding Manifesto

Julie Morgan MP this week joined the Arsenal and England footballer Theo Walcott at the launch of the Breastfeeding Manifesto in London. The event, which took place during National Breastfeeding Awareness week, highlighted the aims of the Breastfeeding Manifesto. Over 30 not-for-profit organisations, including Unicef and five Royal Colleges, have signed up to the manifesto to tackle the low levels of breastfeeding in the UK. Theo Walcott himself grew up knowing how important breastfeeding was as his mum was a La Leche League breastfeeding leader. He has lent his support to the Breastfeeding Manifesto to help every child get off to a healthy start. Julie Morgan MP said: “I was delighted to attend the launch and so pleased to see a young man like Theo Walcott supporting this cause. It is so important that we try to increase the levels of breastfeeding in the UK, and Wales in particular, as it can make a major difference to the health of both mothers and babies. We need to increase awareness about the benefits of breastfeeding and support women who want to breastfeed, especially during the first six months of a baby’s life. We need to make it comfortable for mothers to breastfeed in public and we need to make young people aware of the benefits from a young age so that it becomes a completely accepted part of everyday life. I fully support the new Breastfeeding Peer Support Group that has started up in Llanishen in my constituency – I hope that it will encourage women to start breastfeeding and help them to continue doing so for as long as they wish.”

Join the NHS Organ Donor Register

UK Transplant has launched its first large scale mail drop, inviting more than 275,000 households in Cardiff, Newport and Swansea to join the NHS Organ Donor Register (ODR).

Julie is backing the campaign, which aims to make it more convenient for those who want to pledge the gift of life to join the ODR. "Transplants help give so many people a second chance, yet there is still a desperate shortage of organ donors and sadly people are dying every year as a result," she says.

"Cardiff is full of kindhearted people who work hard in their communities for one another, and I know that many will want to do their bit when the letter arrives through their doors.

"When it does, I ask people to use the opportunity to consider their own organ donation wishes and discuss them with their family. I'm sure people will want to help and they can do so by joining the ODR."

Why not give the helpline a call on 0845 60 60 400?

GMC seeks young people's views on their doctors

The General Medical Council has recently developed draft guidance for doctors on their roles and responsibilities in relation to children and young people — the first time that the GMC has done so. It is currently consulting on the guidance, including a questionnaire specifically designed for children and young people.

As well as the questionnaire, the GMC has also launched a poster competition, the winner for which will be used as the cover for the final UK-wide guidance.

Answering the questionnaire and entering the poster competition enters you for the chance to win an iPod Nano — so if you're a young person why not head over here and help doctors to work better for you?

What a difference a day can make

This article is published today in the Cardiff Post.

John Lennon famously said that there are no problems, "only solutions", but there are some problems that seem far from being solved and that don't seem to be going away.

They may seem to fade into the background for a while, but this doesn't mean that they no longer exist. AIDS is one such problem and last Friday reminded us of this. December 1 was World AIDS Day, a day which focuses our attention back onto the misery that this disease causes.

I am always shocked when I am reminded of how many people are affected by HIV and AIDS. Worldwide, around 40 million people are living with HIV and that number is increases in every place every single day. In our own country, over 70,000 people are living with HIV — a Millennium Stadium worth of people — and more than 7,000 more people are diagnosed as HIV-positive every year. It is estimated that one third of people living with HIV in the UK are unaware that they have the virus. A staggering 25 million people have already died from AIDS.

Of course, there is a lot that can be done to prevent the spread of HIV and we must continue to make information and resources available to people in order to do this. As Elizabeth Taylor once said, "It is bad enough that people are dying of AIDS, but no-one should die of ignorance."

There is also a lot that can be done to treat HIV infection nowadays. Anti-retroviral drugs have meant that in the West, at least, a HIV-positive diagnosis is not the death sentence it once was. In other areas of the world, however, this is not the case and we face huge challenges in the effort to control HIV infection. I've seen for myself the terrible devastation that AIDS causes in Africa both for those dying from the disease and for the children they leave behind. In addition, in Africa, HIV infection is linked with TB infection. In Kenya, I visited one woman who lived in a windowless shack with 15 children and grandchildren to care for. She had lost two daughters to AIDS and was herself suffering from TB and was HIV-positive.

In Africa in particular, we must make sure that lack of information and prejudice about HIV and AIDS are overcome and that people become more aware about how the disease is spread. We must also make sure that access to affordable medicine is improved. We must strive to meet the target of providing universal HIV prevention, care and treatment by 2010.

If you would like to get involved and see what a difference a World AIDS Day can make, visit the website. We can all help to find the solution to this problem together.