All that glistens is not gold
I agree completely with Mr Ayre in his letter in the Pontefract and Castleford Express, about broken pledges being a key part in the grim situation that we now face at Pontefract A&E. Mid Yorks Hospital Trust talks of reviewing A&E and health care provision at Pontefract next year, meanwhile, they have allocated their A&E doctors to Pinderfields and Dewsbury during the hours of darkness "while they are trying to recruit replacements for the 9 mid-grade staff vacancies". The Directors make the case that in the current circumstances the admissions at Pontefract do not warrant it being open during the night, but the numbers have only dropped since the old PGI and Emergency A&E were demolished and critical cases sent elsewhere
Yorkshire Ambulance will no longer take emergencies to Pontefract and patients face a long journeyto other hospitals that do have life support , critical care, cardiac units and the backup facilities that were deleted by the big thinkers who put together the Trust's plan for the new Pontefract Hospital PFI. This effectively means that the facility has become a "state of the art" minor injuries, outpatient and day care unit. Mid Yorks Trust would not allow the word General to go in front of Hospital because it clearly is not, and was never intended to be.
The other less savoury part of this is that whilst Pinderfields, with its pre-war nissen huts, desperately needed a complete rebuild, it would have been better to use some of the £36 million that will be spent each year for the next 30 years paying Consort for the new hospitals (yes that is £1.09 billion pounds) to upgrade and modernise the core facilities at Pontefract that Balfour Beatty have just finished demolishing. With a fully functioning hospital we would have had a better chance of attracting doctors and our current plight could have been avoided. The Directors of Mid Yorks Trust ultimately took the decisions that put us in this position but don't forget that, apparently, the pledges were made to our MP when she was Junior Health Minister and the PFI plan and the bid was supported by her when she was Treasury Minister. She endorsed the PFI plans for Pontefract and sat by whilst the services were deleted before the plan was submitted. Presumably she and the MP for Hemsworth got the pledges and promises in writing, perhaps they could publish them so we all can see the promises that have been broken.
Meanwhile are we as Conservatives lobbying Government and Health Ministers? Absolutely! This fiasco over the last 10 years in deleting and eroding a capable hospital and replacing it with what we now have, and the Trust's inability to attract staff are nothing short of ridiculous.
UPDATE November 2013
I agree completely with Mr Ayre in his letter in the Pontefract and Castleford Express, about broken pledges being a key part in the grim situation that we now face at Pontefract A&E. Mid Yorks Hospital Trust talks of reviewing A&E and health care provision at Pontefract next year, meanwhile, they have allocated their A&E doctors to Pinderfields and Dewsbury during the hours of darkness "while they are trying to recruit replacements for the 9 mid-grade staff vacancies". The Directors make the case that in the current circumstances the admissions at Pontefract do not warrant it being open during the night, but the numbers have only dropped since the old PGI and Emergency A&E were demolished and critical cases sent elsewhere
Yorkshire Ambulance will no longer take emergencies to Pontefract and patients face a long journeyto other hospitals that do have life support , critical care, cardiac units and the backup facilities that were deleted by the big thinkers who put together the Trust's plan for the new Pontefract Hospital PFI. This effectively means that the facility has become a "state of the art" minor injuries, outpatient and day care unit. Mid Yorks Trust would not allow the word General to go in front of Hospital because it clearly is not, and was never intended to be.
The other less savoury part of this is that whilst Pinderfields, with its pre-war nissen huts, desperately needed a complete rebuild, it would have been better to use some of the £36 million that will be spent each year for the next 30 years paying Consort for the new hospitals (yes that is £1.09 billion pounds) to upgrade and modernise the core facilities at Pontefract that Balfour Beatty have just finished demolishing. With a fully functioning hospital we would have had a better chance of attracting doctors and our current plight could have been avoided. The Directors of Mid Yorks Trust ultimately took the decisions that put us in this position but don't forget that, apparently, the pledges were made to our MP when she was Junior Health Minister and the PFI plan and the bid was supported by her when she was Treasury Minister. She endorsed the PFI plans for Pontefract and sat by whilst the services were deleted before the plan was submitted. Presumably she and the MP for Hemsworth got the pledges and promises in writing, perhaps they could publish them so we all can see the promises that have been broken.
Meanwhile are we as Conservatives lobbying Government and Health Ministers? Absolutely! This fiasco over the last 10 years in deleting and eroding a capable hospital and replacing it with what we now have, and the Trust's inability to attract staff are nothing short of ridiculous.
UPDATE November 2013
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