In contrast with last night’s meeting in Lewisham, which sounded rather lively (and where security staff reportedly tried to bar journalists), Tuesday’s meeting at The Valley in Charlton was less than half-full, with only about 30-40 people there, with barely a voice raised in anger. A large number of questioners were councillors and members of the Greenwich Labour party.
There wasn’t much new said about the report, which proposes the downgrading of Lewisham Hospital’s A&E and poses a question mark about its maternity services, but I thought I’d post some audio up for those interested, as well as audio from past meetings.
3 December 2012, The Valley, Charlton
a) The TSA’s panel is asked about Lewisham’s maternity services:
b) Matthew Kershaw is asked about the modelling of maternity services:
c) Most of the rest of the meeting:
21 November 2012, Christchurch Forum, Greenwich
15 November 2012, Woolwich Town Hall (to the public and Greenwich councillors)
(poor quality, but here’s a full post on the meeting)
For more on the consultation, which ends on 13 December, see the TSA website. For more on the campaign to protect Lewisham’s hospital services, see Save Lewisham Hospital. Shannon Hawthorne has a great summary that’s worth reading, too.
Greenwich Council has published its response to the report
http://committees.greenwich.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=22294
It opposes the closure of Lewisham A&E (Para 5.8), possibly leaving a little wriggle room? Interesting bit of Bexley-bashing in a couple of places.
“Nuanced” seems to be the word. More on this in the morning…
At the Lewisham meeting nobody from Lewisham Hospital was sitting on the panel and we were told that Lewisham Hospital was represented there by the Medical Director of Kings, the Hospital that one could argue would benefit from a closure of Lewisham!
Anyway, one of the last people to ask a question from the floor was… a doctor from Lewisham Hospital. She completely rejected the idea that the Hospital was represented there by anybody and said that as a paediatric consultant she was asked to express an opinion about a proposal that says nothing about children services at all. She put the case that despite the lack of any information in the consultation documents about these rather key services at Lewisham if those proposals would go ahead Children A&E and much of paediatric provision there would close as well. The response she reeceive was parly the vague patronizing filler that things change but also the admission that yes, some children now treated at Lewisham would have to go somewhere else.