DEFEND THE WHITTINGTON HOSPITAL COALITION

Here is a copy of the original letter that was submitted for publication. The words in red were edited out by the publishers, in order to save space.

Unfortunately, Councillor Terry Stacey is wrong if he, or any of his his fellow Liberal Democrats, thinks that services at the Whittington Hospital are safe.

If only that were the case.

Defend the Whittington Hospital was set up to defend health provision at the Whittington Hospital and in the wider local area. This is now threatened, which is why we are keeping up the pressure on the Department of Health and our local NHS.

We have a letter from Stephen Conroy, the Communications Director on North Central London NHS, on our website, www.dwhc.org.uk, which answers my request for a guarantee about the continued safety of services at the Whittington and the other hospitals in the North London. Conroy does not guarantee the continuance of Accident and Emergency, Trauma, Maternity and Paediatric Services at the Whittington and other North Central London hospitals. It should be noted that serious cutbacks in mental health provision are also being made.

All our health services are more at risk than they were because of the policies and cuts of the Conservative –Liberal Democrat Coalition.  The current White Paper on Health, is a scary document and puts all our NHS at risk of privatisation, and means that decisions about hospital and heath care could be made by private management firms acting for Gps,  and our hospitals could become private foundation trusts, where nurses and doctors could be employed by private companies instead of the NHS.

It is complicated. But the big worry is that, as a result of this combination of NHS privatisation and the £20 billion NHS ‘efficiency savings’ proposed by the Con-Dem Government, our health system will increasingly move towards the United States model with lower levels of state care and people forced to go private or take out expensive, exploitative health insurance in order to get many treatments currently available on the NHS.

This White paper was apparently agreed by Nick Clegg in his Coalition discussions with Cameron.  Are the Liberal Democrats really prepared to see our NHS privatised and destroyed?

We are not complacent about the threats to our health services. Therefore DWHC opposes the White Paper and are building a campaign against it.

Terry, we need you and your party on side to make sure that it does not become a reality. We need to ensure that health provision is better, and that mental and mainstream health needs are met and not placed at risk as they are under the current proposals.

Please join us.

Our next planning meeting is on Monday 6th September at 7.00pm in the Whittington Community Centre, Yerbury Road, N19, and on Thursday 16th September, at 7.30pm in Archway Methodist Hall. Jeremy Corbyn MP will be hosting a meeting to which he has invited Stephen Conroy from the North Central London NHS to tell us what is being planned.

—
Shirley Franklin
Chair
Defend the Whittington Hospital Coalition
www.dwhc.org.uk