As secretary of Southend Keep Our NHS Public, I add our voice of protest to those of the staff and patients against the decision to close Southend Hospital’s George Foster Taylor ward.
This closure comes on top of the two other wards closed last year and the loss of 400 full-time jobs in the next three years. The boasts of the Government, of patients having choices where they are to be treated ring hollow when wards close and waiting lists become so long that patients have to resort to using their savings on private medical care.
It is ludicrous to stop surgeons operating because the management of the hospital wishes to save money.
The marginal cost of the surgery is minimal. What costs money is running the hospital, salaries, heat and light.
It beggars belief that the management could waste £800,000, paying consultants that their own staff could do better and cheaper and then proceed to shut hospital wards.
Norman Traub
Picketts Avenue
Leigh
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