500 signatures reached
To: HEART OF ENGLAND NHS FOUNDATION TRUST
Save Good Hope Hospital
Update 12/02/2016: We Won!
The controversial plans to change surgery provision at Sutton Coldfield's Good Hope Hospital have been scrapped!
Please do not close or transfer key departments and services at our local hospital, Good Hope, in Sutton Coldfield. We believe the changes proposed by the Heart of England Trust would be detrimental to the welfare and safety of patients in the area.
Why is this important?
Many patients are very anxious about the future of their local hospital, particularly after various media disclosures, including the announcement that 1,000 beds in hospitals across the city (of Birmingham) are due to be axed!
Our campaign group, Save Good Hope’s Local Services, brings together local people who use and care very much about our local hospital, Good Hope, in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands.
We are independent of any political party and are campaigning to stop the closure of key departments at our hospital. Closures of key departments at Good Hope Hospital could be the start of a slippery slope: in many areas of England, hospitals have already either been downgraded or even closed.
One of our main aims, as stated in an earlier petition, has recently been successfully achieved. A public meeting to discuss the Trust’s proposals finally having being held in October, after much campaigning!
And now we are calling for people across Birmingham to say NO to the closure of key departments at the hospital. These were revealed in the Trust's document (before the consultations had even finished!) as the following:
1. The transfer of Trauma FROM Good Hope to Heartlands Hospital;
2. The transfer of Orthopaedics, Ophthalmology and Colorectal Surgery FROM Good Hope to Heartlands and Solihull, both great distances to travel for many people and particularly difficult for carers and those they care for, the elderly, very young and disabled.
In response to concern already expressed by many people at the ongoing consultations regarding transport, the Trust have suggested the equivalent of `taxi’ ambulances so to speak. But who would pay for this?
Even if it was to be the Trust, how long would they actually pay before saying they had run out of funds? Would patients then be expected to pay, including those from other areas even further out, such as Tamworth & Lichfield?
The Heart Of England Trust has been reported in the media as being the highest earning Trust IN THE COUNTRY from car parking charges, netting an annual profit of nearly £4million!
At the public meeting, one of our campaigners asked the Trust why and if that money could be used to help keep our hospital services local?
At present, it is obvious that this Trust STILL lacks openness, transparency and empathy with patients. They need to really start to `think like a patient’, because at the moment, they don’t.
