MSP Mark Griffin's campaign for a "family fund" to provide financial assistance to the parents of prematurely born babies brings into sharp focus the harrowing difficulties facing mothers and fathers with newborns in neonatal care.
The call is particularly poignant given the trauma Griffin and his wife Stephanie faced while their daughter Rosa was in hospital after being born 12 weeks premature. Thankfully Rosa is now home with her parents and the Sunday Herald wishes the family, as well as all others who have experienced such distress, the best for the future.
This newspaper also fully supports Griffin's call for specific financial aid to be made available to parents whose babies are fighting for their lives in neonatal units.
Such crises means all other considerations for parents are placed on the backburner, while they seek to be with their babies around-the-clock in hospital. The cost, especially for the less well off, can be financially crippling.
While acknowledging his own "well paid" job, Griffin speaks movingly of others he encountered in the neonatal wards struggling to pay for travel, childcare, accommodation and food.
Griffin should be applauded for using his platform at Holyrood to speak up for low income parents forced to limit their visits to their desperately ill baby.
We fully agree with him that a "family fund" should be introduced without delay and would cost little.
It's a move that would provide some reassurance and support to parents in the most distressing of times. Ministers must surely agree.
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