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SEEDA
Chairman speaks out on hospital downgrading At a press conference organised by health campaigns across Sussex on Monday 15th January the Chairman of the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) and Sussex resident Jim Brathwaite CBE spoke out against the Government’s reconfiguration proposals. Jim is a highly respected figure both in business and in Government circles and his presence and speech gave an enormous boost to the campaigns across Sussex which are fighting the downgrading or closure of our hospitals. Speaking from a business perspective Jim said that the proposals were bad news for business investment in the area where the South East already makes a net contribution of £11bn in taxes to the Exchequer. He questioned the sense behind such ‘knee jerk reactions to creating change’ and detailed why the health of the local population is an important element of improving the quality of life in the South-East and therefore the attraction for good business investment and jobs. Jim also expressed concerns about where we would train our future doctors if we are closing down A&E departments all over the place. Instead we should be looking at new ways of delivering health which did not compromise quality and did not take it away from local people. SEEDA is trying to achieve smart growth and getting people on sickness benefit back into the workplace and a fully functioning local health service is an important part of that. The event was put together by Worthing’s business umbrella group Worthing First, chaired by Roy Stannard who also gave a presentation emphasising that the business community was solidly behind the Keep Worthing and Southlands Hospitals (KWASH) campaign and that the proposals as they stood could mean a matter of life and death for local employees in an accident situation. In addition, Worthing & Southlands hospitals with 3200 employees are the biggest employers in the area. A Chichester perspective was given by director of Deltex Medical Ewan Phillips who gave details of how his employees rely heavily on St Richards Hospital in Chichester. Consultant obstetrician Jim English from Worthing Hospital also warned of the implications for the local population of losing maternity and other departments from Worthing.
Worthing MPs Peter Bottomley and Tim Loughton chaired the event. Tim
welcomed the initiative from Jim Brathwaite which represented an important
third prong to the campaigns having added the business community to support
from the local population and politicians and secondly the medical staff at
the hospitals. Both MPs agreed that the strength of the campaigns across
Sussex were having an effect on the Strategic Health Authority and West
Sussex Primary Care Trust and the tide was turning in favour of the case
being put forward by the protesters. |
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