Thursday 5 November 2009

Save King George Hospital!

The Green Party will be holding a Protest on Barley Lane by the entrance to King George Hospital in response to the recent fit for the Future proposal set by the BHR trust. The protest will be held on the 21st November 2009 from 12:00 - 14:00. We would like people to come along and to bring banners and posters and chants that we can shout. If you would like to get involved in other ways please make contact.

The "Fit for the Future" proposal if successfully ratified - would see the demise of the existing A&E facility and would inevitably lead to the eradication of any hospital facility at Goodmayes.
Our protest against the proposal will focus on the following issues:

We believe the high density of Redbridge requires a hospital facility. The facility at Queens is very small and always full to capacity just as King Georges and Whipps Cross are. How could any reduction make sense?

the longer journey to accident and emergency service departments at Whipps Cross and Queens Hospital would increase fatality rates. A study of mortality rates (Emergency Medicine Journal) correlated against journey times to emergency services for fatal injuries concluded:

"Increased journey distance to hospital appears to be associated with increased risk of mortality. Our data suggest that a 10-km increase in straight-line distance is associated with around a 1% absolute increase in mortality"


We believe that the large number of ethnic minorities in the area susceptible to conditions such as strokes, heart attacks and diabetes - makes it imperative that we should retain A&E facility locally.

We also believe that the local doctors that support the scheme may have a common form of employer bias and that doctors outside of the NHS should be consulted. Why not consult with the doctors at the local BUPA hospital...?

If anyone would like to get involved with organising the protest they can contact Wilson Chowdhry by calling 020 8514 0861 or by emailing wilson@aasecurity.co.uk

Kind regards

Wilson

4 comments:

  1. When King George Hospital A&E was in trouble before, residents in Barley Lane, Heathfield Park Drive and surrounding areas supported the hospital and thankfully the A&E won a reprieve. I wonder how much support they will get from the surrounding area now? Since the hospital started charging their staff and patients to park in the hospital, the same people who supported the A&E reprieve have had to put up with abuse from hospital staff and patients, having cars parked across their drives, being unable to get out of their own streets because of parking from the hospital on both sides of the road, litter from these cars being thrown in front gardens, even urinating up garden fences. That is the thanks that that local residents get for supporting the hospital and helping these people keep their jobs - I for one will not be joining the protest this time on the 21st November.

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  2. Dear resident,

    I hope you will support the cause for the retention of an A&E facility at King George. Just like the parking scenario this decision has been devised by senior management. We need to retail local service for local people for our better good and I hope you will change your mind.

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  3. I am on a placement at KGH and find that Whipps Cross and Queens hospital A&E frequently become overloaded and patients diverted to KGH. Unsurprisingly we then become full to capacity and management staff desperately try to increase ward discharges (a fruitless task, no-one keeps patients in hospital unnecessarily). Has anyone really looked at the numbers properly? If Queens and Whipps cannot cope now, how will they absorb the increased numbers from KGH closures?

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  4. With regard to the local resident experiencing parking problems created by KGH. Perhaps residents who do not use their driveways could rent them out on gumtree or equivalent. The parking fees are high for staff and patients. You might find that many people would rather pay local residents then the hospital management.

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