A LETTER has been sent out to pregnant women and their families in Ealing announcing the closure of the maternity services on July 1 and that there will be no more planned births from June 24.
The letter sent by London North West Healthcare Trust states: ‘This letter is to inform you that, at Ealing Clinical Commissioning Group’s (CCG) meeting last night, they agreed that Ealing Hospital’s maternity service will close on 1 July 2015. This means there will be no more planned births at the hospital after 24 June 2015.’
For mothers due to give birth after June 24 it advises: ‘As your due date falls after 24 June 2015, we will be contacting you, by phone, over the next few weeks to help you make a decision about which maternity unit you would like your care moved to. We will also explain how this transfer will work.’
However a daily picket of Ealing hospital is gaining support, with its call to occupy the maternity department to stop the closure becoming an extremely popular demand. On Tuesday morning’s picket, Mrs Patel, Unison nurse at Ealing Hospital, told News Line: ‘It would be a tragedy to let Ealing hospital close. There are a lot of patients from Southall who use this hospital on a regular basis.’
Darryl Mann who was delivering food to Ealing Hospital, said: ‘I deliver to a lot of hospitals. Where I live they have closed the A&E and maternity at High Wycombe. We have to travel 20 miles to Stoke Mandeville or Wrexham hospitals. It is all about saving money. We must occupy Ealing maternity to stop further closure.’
Trevor Morris, a patient at Ealing, said: ‘It is typical of the Tory cuts putting lives at risk by closing our District General Hospitals. Ealing is a fantastic hospital and it is desperately needed. The government is forking out over £3 billion on agency health workers. They accuse the agency companies of milking the NHS, but it is the politicians that are causing the problem by not training and keeping enough doctors and nurses. My girlfriend is a physiotherapist at Ealing Hospital. She has had only a £1,000 pay rise in the entire eleven years of working here!’
Audrey Sansick said: ‘It is a cancer in itself, to destroy the medical facilities of our NHS.’ Meanwhile, a long-serving Fulham GP has backed Hammersmith & Fulham Council’s call to save the A&E unit at Charing Cross Hospital.
Dr Mike Evans was one of many local residents and health professional who contacted the council this week to share concerns over the NHS plans. He said: ‘I have been a GP in Fulham from 1987 to 2015 and have a pretty good knowledge of what is needed in terms of local medical services. The planned downgrade of Charing Cross and the rebuild of a token small medical service to try and keep people happy is nothing short of a dangerous disgrace.
‘I have known so many instances of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital being totally unable to cope with emergencies and in admitting patients. So to lop off a large hospital like Charing Cross is madness. I’m disgusted.’
