SAVE OUR HOSPITALS: Worthing and Southlands hospitals need you
An Open Letter to the People of Worthing. You Need Your Hospital : Your Hospital Needs You
So now we know. A year or so ago since we sat in the Pavilion together, the local primary care trust has announced its potential plans for the future of healthcare in West Sussex ,where we live, under the guise of "Fit for the Future".
In truth, the plans revealed are little different from those we had in our briefcase that night.
Does this affect you? Yes it does.
We have now entered the consultation phase of this process whereby the public are entitled to air their views and hopefully be listened to.
We are nave enough to still believe in our democratic process and hope that people will listen. But in order to be heard you must make a noise.
Some of you may be wondering why all the fuss and anyway: in all the options there will still be a hospital in Worthing, won't there?
That is true but not a hospital as you know it.
Let us run through what the various scenarios are:
Our primary care trust describes the new model as having three hospitals.
This is a little confusing but don't be concerned - our colleagues outside West Sussex don't understand the terminology either.
Firstly there is the "Critical care Centre".
These will be all-singing, all–dancing hospitals that will offer all super specialist services.
These will be in Brighton and Portsmouth. None in West Sussex for the 760,000 of us…
No debate or consultation there, it was just decided.
Of course we have excellent critical care centres not very far away in London, many of which have international reputations, and everything below this level is already offered at Worthing.
However, we are told that this has been decided. We won't have one.
We're not sure who decided, or even whose idea it was.
Then we have the Major General Hospital, which will resemble either Worthing or St Richard's as they are now, only bigger (no evidence that better comes into it). In some cases much bigger.
We are told that this will lead to better outcomes for patients. But will it?
Both hospitals already have excellent reputations and will making one large maternity unit, for example, improve on the currently offered services, when both hospitals are already in the top 10 per cent in the country?
Finally the Local General Hospital.
In the consultation this is Worthing's fate in two out of three scenarios.
But what is it? It is called a hospital but it is not a hospital as you currently know it.
True it will have beds for some low risk surgery, including day casework. It will have scanners and outpatients and some rehabilitation services.
That's what we have already of course, but at present we also have the ability to deal with you when you are seriously ill.
But it will apparently have an urgent care centre which will treat you when you are ill? No, it won't.
If you have a heart attack you can't go there.
Angina? No, not there.
A stroke then? No.
Pneumonia? No.
Broken hip? No.
The list goes on. And on.
Don't be fooled by the promise of the urgent care centre: it is a minor injuries unit and little more.
So now you know.
Is that what you want for the largest town in west Sussex with a hospital that already serves (we believe brilliantly), a population of nearly 300,000?
In many other countries in Europe this would be reason enough to have a major hospital but not apparently in West Sussex.
Nor is the fact that the Healthcare Commission has graded both Worthing and St Richard's as "good" clinically (and not any of the other hospitals involved in the consultation).
We know that you have all been bombarded by the reasons for change, some of which at first glance seem quite compelling.
People will apparently be supported in staying healthy and avoid becoming ill.
We're not sure about that, are you?
People will have care closer to home. Will they?
In some services yes, but for the things that one does not like to ponder on - the things that one hopes doesn't happen to you or your loved ones - that will not be the case.
The thought that the current system does not offer specialist services is a myth.
Here in Worthing we offer treatment for heart attacks and heart disease that up to a few years ago people had to go to London for.
Not now. It's here, offered locally.
We have an excellent stroke unit, which offers state of the art treatment locally.
Our range of surgical services is the envy of many a hospital nationwide.
Where is that offered? That's right - locally, at Worthing.
You, the general public, must realise what could be taken from you and must not think that you cannot influence matters.
The decisions made in the next few months may have terrible implications for all our futures. And our descendents' futures.
We firmly believe that a county the size of West Sussex cannot continue to offer the same quality of services if the biggest hospital in the most populous area, serving the most deprived community, and with the outsatnding services it already offers, was to be anything but a major general hospital.
Be sure that (despite the statements suggesting it) this process is not being driven by the wishes of the majority of doctors: it is not.
The vast majority are completely against it.
Be sure that doctors have not initiated the models proposed: they have not.
In most cases, the doctors were presented with this model alone and asked how it could work.
They were not asked (or even allowed) to suggest a lasting, sustainable, safe model for the healthcare of our population.
That would have been something completely different.
Right now, your hospital needs you.
To write, to attend meetings, to make yourselves heard.
Ask why a two acute hospital option is not on the agenda.
Ask why the healthcare funding made available to West Sussex, when compared to other regions of England and Wales, is inadequate.
Ask why, in the fifth largest economy in the world, one of the biggest primary care trusts in the country, serving a population of approaching 750,000, only needs one acute hospital.
The list goes on and on.
Please don't let us lose our hospital without a fight. We and our colleagues will continue to fight, but just as one day you might need us, right now we need you.
Dr Lui G Forni BSc PhD MRCPI
Consultant Physician and Intensivist and local resident
Dr Mark Signy MA FRCP
Consultant Cardiologist and local resident
The comments and sentiments of this letter are our own and should not necessarily be interpreted as the views of the hospital trust.
Click here to see all the news about the fight to save the hospitals, as it happens, as well as all the background.
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Weather for Worthing
Saturday 11 February 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: -6 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 2 C to 3 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North west
