bordon & whitehill
Candlelit vigil at Chase Community Hospital, Bordon, to protest about NHS ward closure.. L2R: Ann Budd used to be a health care assistant on ward until she retired; Jill Long committee campaign coordinator; Pat Passingham League of friends; Cllr Adam Carew,; Phyllis Applim League of friends ; Sally Pond Whitehill town councillor for Chase ward; Fiona Jackson campaigner.
STITCHED up by the NHS – that’s the verdict of one of the campaigners who are striving to keep open beds at Chase Community Hospital as the decision-making process enters its final weeks.
Bordon resident Fiona Jackson was joined by town councillor Adam Carew and other protestors near the entrance to the hospital in Conde Way to hold a candlelit vigil last Friday.
After last autumn’s recommendation by the county council’s Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee that the South Eastern Hampshire CCG should look again at its proposals for the future of health services in Whitehill, the authority has come up with three options.
Option one is to re-design the hospital and provide a doubling of outpatient services and clinics, mental health services and an on-site GP surgery. Beds would be provided at a nursing home in Liss or in patients’ own homes.
Option two is to expand the number of beds to 24 to cover a wider catchment area and put mental health and community services on site but this would not allow for more outpatient clinics or a GP surgery.
Option three would also expand the number of beds to 24 but with 12 for end of life care.
Chief development officer at South Eastern Hampshire CCG, Sara Tiller, said: “Everyone is agreed that closing Chase is not an option – nor is taking no action to review the NHS services currently provided at the site, as most are significantly under-used.”
However, Cllr Carew said: “What local councillors and campaigners fail to understand is why it has to be one extreme or another. Why can’t we have a range of options that retain some beds and include the additional outpatient services we have requested.”
He is urgently looking for a health professional or GP to help him present the case for saving the beds and attend the decisive Hampshire meeting with him on March 22.
He said there will be another public event for Bordon people to express their views at before then. Vigil organiser Miss Jackson is angry at the way the community has been treated on the issue.
“I have been gagged. It’s Hobson’s choice. We have been stitched up by the NHS.”
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Weather for Petersfield
Friday 24 May 2013
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