One gets the impression that BCUHB would like to shut down all healthcare in North Wales and save themselves the trouble of doing anything....
FURIOUS campaigners slammed the NHS cuts revealed at the public meeting at St Asaph’s Optic Centre yesterday.Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board’s board of members were heckled, mocked and angrily shouted at by the public who looked on as they slashed services across North Wales.
At several points a neonatal campaigner – John Hewitt – was asked to sit down during discussions as he disputed the fact that babies would be more safely treated in Merseyside, rather than Ysbyty Glan Clwyd.
The board’s response was to threaten to cease the meeting when he became vocal.
Mr Hewitt, 39, experienced premature birth first-hand when his now 18-month-old daughter, Moli was born at just 32 weeks and had to be resuscitated at birth and then treated at Glan Clwyd on a ventilator.
Furious when the board went with the decision to cease treating premature babies at intensive care long-term at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd, he said outside: “I’ve no faith in those people in there.
“They are supposed to be educated people.”
John’s wife, Nicola, 34, from Llanfair TH said the decision to force seriously ill babies and their parents to travel to Arrowe Park Hospital was “disgusting”.
Nicola believed the decision to outsource the care to England could cost babies lives.
“I think it is disgusting. The main thing is it is an awful lot of stress for the parents, but the babies can’t cope with the extra stress,” she said.
“They just need to rest and get better.
“If a mother is breastfeeding, then we were going to hospital two times a day to express the milk.
“You couldn’t expect a parent to do that twice a day to Arrowe Park.
“This will 100% cost lives. Babies don’t like being handled and put in different cots and ambulances.
“The baby needs rest and if the mother is breast feeding, the mother’s breast milk and father’s contact to aid growth.
“Moli was 3lbs when she was born, some babies are only 1lb. They couldn’t survive a journey to Liverpool, they are fragile.”
Also angry were protesters complaining huge petitions hadn’t been included in the statistics as part of the consultation report.
Hecklers disrupted the meeting on several occasions particularly on figures representing feeling on the closure of Prestatyn Community Hospital and Colwyn Bay Hospital’s minor injuries unit.
Old Colwyn councillor Cheryl Carlisle complained a petition letter containing 1,796 names had not been included in the data considered by the board.
“I’m outraged. They’ve discounted 1,796 letters, our letters don’t appear in the figures,” she said.
“They were just here today to rubber stamp. But the fight goes on. We don’t feel they’ve based this decision on public opinion. We will continue to fight for the public good.”
Ann Williams, 65, is a member of Colwyn Bay Action Group.
“I’m very, very disappointed. Very cross. We don’t feel we’ve been listened to,” she said.
“I feel the results have been based on floored numbers. We are just waiting to see if this is the tip of the iceberg and they will gradually close the hospital- it’s been there since 1899.
“Colwyn Bay Hospital was built by the people of Colwyn Bay for the people of Colwyn Bay.
“They had made the decision about closing the hospital before they got here today they just came here to cross the Ts, they weren’t going to take any notice of us at all.”
Members of the public campaigning for Flint’s community hospital, which was closed, were livid when they learned the NHS would fund just one patient bed for the elderly at a nursing home.
Another member of the public called a board member trying to appease the crowds “a smiling assassin.”
http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/2013/01/18/campaigners-furious-at-north-wales-nhs-shake-up-decisions-55578-32633494/
