I've been to Woolwich only a few times from FH and it was a long journey by car at all times of the day and evening. The prospect of having to get there by bus is even more daunting. I wouldnt know where to start. We would just go to Kings- like a lot of people probably would putting more pressure on their services. Yet no one seems to have factored in that a lot of people in this area don't see Woolwich as within their mental map of their home territory and would find other places to go instead. Woolwich just seems too suburban, too alien, and too far away and too difficult to get to unless you have family there and ' bond' with the area. Maps tell you nothing about how people relate to and use services in particular areas and distance isnt the most relevant thing on its own.
I have three young children and have had several trips to both Lewisham and Kings A and E by ambulance and sometimes car , mostly in the middle of the night and had to make our way back in the early hours of the morning both by bus and cab. If you've ever had to drive with a sick feverish screaming child with a plastic jewellery bead stuck up her nose , you wouldn't fancy the extended trip to Woolwich along some rather difficult and isolated roads where it might be tricky to pull over and tend to a vomiting child.
I have been unhappy with the diagnoses of my children by out of hours GPs and instead taken them to A and E. One occasion was when my two week old was having difficulty breathing and feeding and needed urgent care ; our journey was made just in time before the roads were closed due to snow;she was intubated and put on a drip due to severe dehydration and poor oxygen intake. The second was when a serious undisgnosed urine infection left my 10 month old in pain, and with potential kidney damage. It was a visit to A and E on my hunch that probably saved her kidneys; they rapidly diagnosed and treated her and moved her onto a wards for two nights, and we had daily follow up trips for several days afterwards with sample bottles being sent in by taxi for monitoring, as i had no car at that time. This couldn't have been done had we been dependent on Woolwich for our emergency treatment.
Children's conditions can sink so rapidly that to increase the journey time can only spell trouble as it may mean that parents just don't err on the side of caution and visit A and E. Our winter experience was extremely scary and I was so glad that we didnt have to drive through snow and ice to Woolwich as I doubt if we'd have got there before being snowed in.
There was a good examination of the Lewisham Hospital proposal in Private Eye that's worth distributing as widely as possible. Lewisham is efficient and effective - why choose to close one of the best-run departments?
The Sydenham Assembly Coordinator's Group and the Sydenham Society have arranged a Lewisham Hospital Public Consultation meeting at Sydenham School, Dartmouth Road starting at 7.30 on Thursday 6 December. Dr Jane Fryer, Chief Medical Advisor to the Trust Special Administrator, will present the draft recommendations set out in the TSA report.
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Please come along to this public consultation meeting - the TSA will be bringing along the short video and consultation packs - so please make your views known through the feedback forms as well as asking questions, giving comments and offering any alternatives.
The is a planned vigil on Thursday 13th dec between 4 pm till 7 pm at lewisham hospital. Please make Chinese lanterns, bring glow sticks anything that can illuminate for visual impact. We need you all to show solidarity by coming to this vigil. There are a few other things planned. Please look at the website for further details.
Savelewishamhospital.com
As part of the consultation on the proposed closure of services at Lewisham Hospital, Matthew Kershaw ('The Special Administrator' who is recommending the changes) will be speaking tomorrow night at the Calabash Day Centre in Lewisham. Opponents of the plans have called for people to 'Converge on Kershaw' to show the strength of local feeling against the cuts.
The event is on Tuesday 4th December, 7-9pm at 26 George Lane, SE13 6HH (map here), with protestors gathering from 6pm.
There will be a public consultation meeting on the future of Lewisham Hospital at 7.30 pm on Thursday 6 December at Sydenham School, Dartmouth Road.
Dr Jane Fryer, Medical Director of NHS South East London will be presenting the draft recommendations, including the downgrading of Lewisham’s A&E and maternity services.
This event is organised by the Sydenham Society and the Sydenham Assembly. We felt that it was imperative to organise a meeting on this topic since no consultation meeting on the proposed changes was scheduled to take place in this part of the borough.
This is an essential meeting for all those interested in the future shape of hospital services in the area.
Save lewisham hospital website has not yet been updated. However there is a vigil planned outside lewisham hospital on Thursday 13th dec between 4 and 7 pm. We are asking people to bring lanterns, glow sticks, torches, in fact anything that illuminates to illuminate the sky for maximum impact. This is the last chance before the consultation closes to show your solidarity to our hospital. Please, please also make time to complete the consultation paper ( details on savelewishamhospital.com) . It may not make any difference to the proposals but we must try!
Mr kershaw did come on the 4th dec. the video he wanted us to see was patronising and a complete waste of time. You can watch it online. The proposals are to have a hospital full of consultants in bexley. We need to preserve our frontline services. This is very much good for the consultants but not good for the people. They will be cyphoning exorbitant amounts of money form the nhs and their qtrusta. It's fat cat consultants getting fatter. Greed!!
This post was last modified: 07-12-2012 08:57 AM by meduza.
Public consultation ends Thursday night. If you are concerned about the future of A&E and Maternity Services at Lewisham Hospital, and you haven't yet responded to the consultation, you don't have much longer. See http://www.savelewishamhospital.com/
That's a waste of £5m rather than just £4m. This is not a small amount of money as it is more than the difference between a hospital balancing their books and a 'working surplus' (not spending 1% of the money allocated by the government). Since this was the justification for taking a look at Lewisham's books, it shows that not only is the cure worse than the illness, but the act of diagnosis is worse than the diagnosis itself.
Here is an article about the reason for SLHT's financial problems, that has ended up affecting us so much. I find it despicable that the CEO of one of the private healthcare companies has made a personal fortune of around £60m from PFI whilst our hospitals are at threat of closure.
The Trust is not to blame despite what TSA will have us believe - the idiots who thought up this funding fiasco are!
The final report to Jeremy Hunt has now been submitted and no account was taken of the views of local people.
Should Jeremy Hunt decide to shut a key services at a good performing, non-loss making hospital, to safeguard the future of a badly run and loss making hospital group, it will be a complete failure of the system of Trusts supported by this government. Lewisham hospital and residents are being asked to pay for the financial mess and poorly negotiated contracts in a different Trust.
With luck he will take the politically sensible, commercially sensible, legally sensible, and health care sensible decision to keep Lewisham A&E and maternity services open, rather than spending £130m to move the services to other hospitals or community based services.
It is really disappointing, but not surprising. I took part in various consultations and I felt it was just a token exercise. They do not care about the opinions of local people and I have little faith in Jeremy Hunt to make a good decision either.
The thing that really galls me is that they keep saying this is inevitable, there is no other option. Well there are other options! There is money elsewhere in the NHS. But they don't want to spend it - they want to privatise the NHS and they can't do it openly, so they do it by spurious means like this, regardless of the impact this is going to have on people's lives.
I will be at the march on the 26 January along with my family.
Odd. I remember responding to the consultation paper. I remember lots of questions that started "How far do you support or oppose the plan to...". But I don't remember him asking specifically for alternative solutions. I might be wrong, of course...
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