| The decision on the future of Lewisham A&E is due at the start of February. We must keep up the pressure to SAVE LEWISHAM HOSPITAL 26th January 2013 WE NEED TO MARCH AGAIN! Assemble at Lewisham Roundabout (by the station) at 12 noon on Saturday 26th January March past our hospital to Mountsfield Park for rally, music and Giant Petition! On February 4th, Secretary of State Jeremy Hunt will reveal his response to the recommendations of Trust Special Administrator Matthew Kershaw. These could result in the closure of Lewisham Hospital. Instead of sorting out the bad PFI deals in the South London Health Trust, the TSA has stepped outside his brief, proposing the closure of Lewisham Hospital’s brand new A&E, as well as the childrens’ wards, intensive care and maternity services. Elderly care will also be hit. He has also recommended the clearing of 60% of the hospital site at a huge loss of £35 million, as well as £100 million cuts to services in Greenwich, Bexley and Bromley. If this dangerous plan goes ahead, surrounding hospitals would be overwhelmed, so everyone in SE London will be very badly affected. PFI deals are bankrupting health trusts across the country. Lewisham is the first victim. We must stop this madness now before it destroys the whole NHS. * No NHS services cuts in Lewisham, Greenwich, Bexley and Bromley. * We will not accept the destruction of the NHS! Don’t forget the NHS ‘Day of Action’ on 16th February Ring Lewisham Pensioners’ Forum for more details: 020 8690 7869 A&E closure 'can't be justified' A damning report which demands a debt-ridden NHS trust is broken up must not be used to justify closing essential hospital services, a senior Labour MP has said. Dame Joan Ruddock said the special administrator’s report into South London Healthcare Trust was being used to force through a “major reconfiguration of services via the back door”. She said claims by the trust’s special administrator Matthew Kershaw that Lewisham Hospital, run by Lewisham Healthcare Trust, needs to close its accident and emergency department could not be justified. Raising an urgent question in the Commons, she said: “In order to tackle the huge financial deficits sustained by the South London Healthcare Trust, the TSA proposes to close Lewisham Hospital’s A&E services, including the acclaimed children’s A&E, end medical and surgical emergency care and demolish maternity services. “He then proposes to sell off half the hospital’s land. This cannot be justified - 120,000 use Lewisham A&E each year, over 30,000 children use the children’s A&E, over 4,000 babies are born in the hospital each year. And there is no current capacity in any of the hospitals in the area.” She added: “These proposals amount to a major reconfiguration by the back door and they are opposed by virtually all the health professionals in the area and the people of Lewisham. “Do you believe that a reconfiguration of services in south east London is necessary? If it is, then you need to propose one with the relevant consideration for patient safety and healthcare standards.” The trust was the first ever to be placed in administration after it started losing around £1.3m a week. It should now be broken up, with other organisations taking over its management, Mr Kershaw said. According to his report - which was presented after no “viable alternatives” were put forward - its hospitals will need to make £74.9m of efficiency savings over the next three years. Of that, £42m could be saved by cutting 140 staff from the trust’s three hospitals. Implementing Mr Kershaw’s recommendations would cost around £313m, while the trust’s debts are expected to reach £207m by March. He said ministers should bail the trust out of its massive private finance initiative debts, which built up after new buildings at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich and Princess Royal University Hospital in Farnborough, near Bromley, and account for 16 per cent of its income. Speaking in the Commons, health secretary Jeremy Hunt said he needed more time to consider his response to the report. He said: “I do understand the concerns of MPs and indeed the people living in the areas affected by these proposals, especially the people of Lewisham. “They have the right to expect the highest quality of NHS care and I have a duty to ensure that I receive it. However, they will understand it would not be appropriate for me to give a view now on the report’s recommendations only a day after receiving it. “To do so would be pre-emptive and would prejudice my duty to consider the recommendations with care and reach a decision that is in the best interest of the people of south-east London. “The challenges facing South London Trust are complex and long-standing and to fail to address them is to penalise other parts of the NHS from whom resources must be taken to finance the biggest deficit anywhere in the NHS.” ‘Converge on Kershaw’ meeting Tuesday December 4th Hundreds of from Lewisham and other parts of south east London crowded into the Calabash Centre in Catford to show government appointed administrator Matthew Kershaw what they thought of his plans to close down Lewisham Hospital’s A&E (recently undergone a £12 million refurbishment) and maternity services, children’s wards, critical care, emergency and complex surgery units and sell off Lewisham Hospital’s empty buildings for £17million. Overall this would mean that Lewisham would lose its emergency medical, surgical and paediatric services and intensive care unit and, as many people have pointed out, Kershaw’s hatchet job would effectively mean the end of Lewisham Hospital. The meeting was the last but one of a series of meetings put on by the South London Health Trust as part of their so-called public consultation programme on Kershaw’s proposals and was, significantly, held on the 55th anniversary of the Lewisham train crash in which over 90 people died but with the close proximity of Lewisham Hospital preventing the death toll from being much higher. The meeting was preceded by a very spirited demonstration outside the hall with people shouting slogans ‘Save Lewisham Hospital!’, ‘Save the NHS!’ and denouncing Kershaw. The panel included the South London Trust Special Administrator Matthew Kershaw himself, Dr Jane Fryer, Kershaw’s Chief Medical Adviser, Hannah Farrar, Kershaw’s assistant, Andy Mitchell, a consultant paediatrician. The meeting was stormy in the extreme with people in the audience constantly shouting down and denouncing the panel. Kershaw and the other members of the panel all introduced themselves and, with frequent interruptions jeers and denunciations from the hall, boasted of their ‘commitment’ to the NHS and to healthcare. Kershaw’s plans for Lewisham are part and parcel of the whole government’s agenda, following the passing of the Health and Social Care Act, to privatise the whole of the NHS, to put the interests of the big financiers who are making huge profits out of the NHS, through PFI etc. over and above the health care needs of the people. Thus in his opening statement at the meeting Kershaw, as the government’s hit man in the area, tried to ‘justify’ his plans making out that ‘saving money’ was ‘the serious issue’ and that the South London trust cannot go on ‘losing £1 million a week’ which has to be seen in the context of the government’s cutting £20 billion from the health budget. Kershaw then went on to claim that health care was his priority and tried to make out that this continuing debt will have an adverse effect on ‘clinical quality’ and ‘the ability of the local NHS to work’. In other words he was attempting to downgrade the hard work and commitment of the medical staff at Lewisham Hospital which has been highly praised for its recent record in health care, not least for the state of the art newly furbished A&E that Kershaw proposes to get rid of! The PFI built Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich has run up the huge debt, whereas Lewisham Hospital, not PFI, also has a good financial record. Kershaw was appointed South London Trust Special Administrator by the previous Minister of Health Andrew Lansley in July this year to implement the government’s programme of the gradual destruction of the NHS through a massive injection of private investment and ever increasing support for the big financial companies who are making huge profits out of the NHS through PFI and other contracts. This is done under the pretence of ‘better health care’ but it is clear that private profit over and above people’s health care needs is their overriding motif. After the opening statements an attempt was made to show the ‘TSA Consultation video’, a slick PR film (replete with glossy music) purporting to ‘explain’ why the re-organisation was necessary and the ‘tough decisions’ that had to be implemented because of the £207 million ‘debt’ etc. The film was justly and defiantly shouted down by the angry audience justly denounced it as ‘patronising bilge’ to the extent that the organisers were obliged to take it off after a few minutes! A glossy brochure produced by the TSA ‘Securing sustainable NHS services’ had been placed on every seat in the hall which claimed that, amongst many other distortions of the truth, that the TSA ‘has worked with’ GPs, hospital workers, doctors, nurses, patients and members of the public to develop his (i.e. Kershaw’s) recommendations’; the fact is the opposite, GPS, nurses and everyone else are totally opposed to Kershaw’s plans. During the question and answer session which followed, the panel skirted the many just points and questions put to them by the people in the hall; their ‘answers’ being, on the one hand endless waffle with reams of misleading financial data, and on the other, subjective pious statements on their ‘commitment’ to the health care of the people and ‘universal health care of the highest possible quality’. [Andy Mitchell even said at one point “… you might find it difficult to believe but we are public servants…” (!) ]. Person after person from the floor angyly and scathingly criticised the report pointing out that journey times to other hospitals would inevitably mean higher death rates. Several people spoke from their own experience of emergency situations in which their partner or baby would have been lost in the time it would have taken to go elsewhere. One mother pointed out that every borough should have its own A&E. Another mother praised Lewisham as being ‘a really good hospital’ and that her baby would have died if she had had to go to Woolwich. Another speaker spoke of the proposals as being ‘insane’. Amidst all the protests and furore from the audience, the panel, visibly shaken tried to placate the hall by saying their plan was still being ‘worked on’ for another month until the final report was put to Jeremy Hunt. Dr Fryer said in all seriousness, to howls of derisory laughter that “we have got the bones (!) of a plan which will work”. Many people denounced the speed at which the whole consultation was being rushed through and at the end of the meeting Liam Curran, a Lewisham Councillor, as well as roundly denouncing Kershaw’s proposals, questioned the legality of the whole process and announced that the council were getting legal advice to mount a legal challenge. The meeting ended in an uproar with another demonstration outside with more slogans denouncing Kershaw and defending Lewisham Hospital and the whole NHS. Kershaw and the other panel members, cowering from the shouts from the people as they left the hall had to be ignominiously escorted to their cars under police protection. The struggle to save Lewisham hospital is one of many such struggles taking place throughout the country. The determination and spirit shown by the people of Lewisham and neighbouring areas of south east London to save their hospital is part and parcel of the growing struggle of people throughout the whole country to fight back against the attempts of the government to destroy the NHS; health care is a right, not a privilege! (www.savelewishamhospital.com, Press Association, Workers' Weekly reporter) |