Hammersmith & Fulham Council is giving its backing to the ‘Save Charing Cross Hospital’ campaigners who are organising an event on the Birthday of the NHS – Saturday July 5.
Campaigners will meet just across the road from Charing Cross Hospital at 2pm before walking to a rally outside Frank Banfield Park. There will be speakers, music and a family picnic in the park after the rally.
For more details, visit the community website here (opens new window).
The council’s new administration is opposing plans to demolish Charing Cross Hospital and replace it with what is currently planned to mainly be a GP-led clinic. It is also campaigning against the loss of both of the borough’s local A&Es and has already begun negotiations with government health chiefs.
“The residents of Hammersmith and Fulham have given us a very clear democratic mandate to do everything we can to stop the proposed cuts of local hospital services” says Cllr Stephen Cowan, H&F Council Leader.
“We have already begun urgent discussions with senior health officials and we have set up a task force at the council to protect these vital services that are so critically important to local people’s lives.
“It has become patently clear that alternative services at St Mary’s in Paddington are already over-stretched and cannot cope with cases that would be displaced from our borough. The promised expansion in community services, to ease the pressure on the hospitals, has just not happened. To close hospitals under any circumstances is risky, but to do it in these circumstances is reckless and puts lives at risk.”
Health officials claim that pooling resources at larger hospitals – such St Mary’s in Paddington improve patient care. The Council’s new administration does not dispute the need for some specialisation but is challenging the clinical grounds in which decisions are made.
“The news that the council is supporting the community campaign is wonderful,” says event organiser and former nurse at Charing Cross, Anne Drinkell.
“People face losing the blue-light A&E services at Charing Cross and Hammersmith hospitals, losing hundreds of acute care beds and the losing the Charing Cross acute care and stroke units. It’s ridiculous. Nearby casualty departments are already overflowing or due to close themselves and community health services are over-stretched and under-resourced.”
Please write your comments at the H&F Council page:
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