Hospital Closures.

[cruiser2]

Have had a letter from my MP who voted against Clause 119 of the Care Bill. This gives the Health Secretary sweeping powers to force the closure of hospital over the heads of local communities, GPs and other health workers. This policy is undemocratic and unpopular.

Our local hospital may lose its 24 hour A and E department. This would mean travelling several miles to another hospital for treatment. I have signed a petition objecting to this proposed closure.
If you look on your own MP's web site you may find they have a similar petition.

[Workingman]

The maths of the thing are shocking.

The government had a majority of 58, but 116 MPs couldn't be bothered to turn up or vote.

[Kaz]

That's terrible

[KateLMead]

It is an outrage. Particularly when we see the same idiots running these failed hospitals are on mammoth salaries for unnecessary deaths and failure..bullying of staff who make a complaint about having to lie to save these managers necks...and the conditions they are working under known. However these idiots are still employed by the NHS and the staff
Are still having to keep their mouths shut or lose their jobs.
What a farcical situation

[cromwell]

I saw (or read, can't remember which) something recently which stuck with me. This individual was saying "Everybody knows that we have too many hospitals". Everybody knows? Also a couple of nights ago a Doctor was on the TV saying how much better it is if specialist services are based in one place rather than being spread out over several hospitals.
So what seems to be happening is a campaign has been launched to soften people up for the closure or downgrading of their local hospital.
Around here, Ponte hospital is only six or seven miles from Pinderfields Hospital in Wakey. But if you live n the other side of Ponte then you would have to travel through Ponte and Wakey to get to Pinderfields. Not a quick job in the rush hour, I can assure you.
But of course this policy would have benefits for someone; namely selling off even more public buildings and land which can be demolished and built on.

[Workingman]

I do not get the "Too many hospitals" most of them were built for a much lower population ... that does not add up.

Centralising specialist services, on the other hand, does make sense, but the way it is being done doesn't. Closing Children's Heart Surgery in Leeds and forcing a population of about 2.5 million to go round Manchester and on to Liverpool, or have a pleasant drive through the Dales and on over the moors to Newcastle, did not make sense, but it was going to happen until the patients stepped in.

I would add to that that A&E is not, to my mind, a specialist service; it is an essential service.

What is very worrying is that a trust with one failing hospital could close forcing the closure of other excellent hospitals within that trust. It's bloody madness!

[TheOstrich]

There is a local campaign to "Save Good Hope Hospital" - it's in a group of three with Solihull and Heartlands. They have a cunning plan to concentrate various specialist services at Heartlands, the bigger campus. The distance between them is not great - but in Birmingham traffic it can take time (and will do especially in the future, as they now appear to be going ahead with this ludicrous idea to make 90% of the roads in the city 20 mph ... but that's another story!). The big problem is what would happen to Good Hope's A&E ... (where Mrs O finished up last Xmas).

The campaign group was supposed to be meeting the NHS Trust and local MP recently to try to clarify what is going on, but that meeting got called off. The MP does not seem supportive of the campaign, which is quite interesting!

Another area where they are trying to concentrate specialist services in one hospital or t'other is Shropshire. I believe they want to close either Shrewsbury or Telford's A&E .... protests ongoing there ....

[Kaz]

They closed the maternity unit of the hospital where Becky was born, a few years later, Ashford in Middlesex, where I was living at the time.... That meant maternity cases going either to St Peters in Chertsey or towards London and the West Middlesex. Both journeys involving negotiating terrible traffic at times, and St Peters involving crossing the Thames at Staines which can be a terrible bottle neck at times. When B was born I was haemorrhaging and it was an emergency - I'm not sure either of us would have survived if we'd been stuck for an hour or more in traffic

[cromwell]

in Birmingham traffic it can take time (and will do especially in the future, as they now appear to be going ahead with this ludicrous idea to make 90% of the roads in the city 20 mph ... but that's another story!).

Yes. And guess where the 30 kph / 20mph limit push is coming from? Another massively under reported story - I wonder why!
http://road.cc/content/news/44985-europ ... oss-europe

[TheOstrich]

Might have guessed.



Vote UKIP, you know it makes sense .....