Save Southmead Hospital

Bristol campaign

Save Southmead Hospital

"WE DON’T need to consult the public over casualty – keeping it
open would put patients in danger." This was how North Bristol NHS
Trust told local people that Southmead Hospital’s Accident and Emergency
(A&E) department, which has served north and north west Bristol for
decades, was closing without consultation.

Graeme Jones, Bristol

They plan to expand the A&E department at Frenchay, some four miles
around a busy ring road. Now developers say they want to build up to 1,600
new homes on a brownfield site adjacent to Frenchay Hospital.

If they succeed this could mean thousands more vehicles using the ring
road near to the hospital, with potentially disastrous consequences.

Scandalously local councillors of all parties agreed to the closure,
accepting the false argument that keeping an inadequate service open would
put lives at risk. In fact it is the running down of the service over
several years which is putting people at risk.

Incredibly, the NHS Trust managers say that this cannot be described as
a service closure and is in no way linked to the £45 million overdraft
recorded last year.

They also deny longer-term plans to close the entire hospital, but we
know they plan to build a new ‘super’ hospital by 2012, using private
finance, at an as yet undisclosed site. This is likely to replace both
Southmead and Frenchay, these sites being sold off to private developers.

The old Bristol General Hospital is already being sold to developers to
turn it into yuppie flats. They intend to use the funds raised to
partially pay for the long-awaited South Bristol Hospital, the shortfall
coming from private finance.

The people of Bristol need adequately funded, quality healthcare,
accessible to all. Private finance, however, seeks only to profit from its
investment. Unfortunately the ‘top medics’ and trust managers’ actions
make it clear that finance is firmly at the top of their agenda, not
providing adequate public health services.

Socialist Party members in North Bristol have been canvassing around
the hospital and on Southmead estate, where we found almost 100% support
for the casualty staying open. People are very angry, and this could be
the issue which ignites a campaign to save the hospital from closure.