Shocking state of our hospital's A&E means we MUST have new one

COUNCILLOR HAS WITNESSED FIRST HAND CRISIS AT DERRIFORD

- LEE FINN

Conservative councillor LEE FINN is urging the Labour Government not to abandon a planned rebuild of Derriford's A&E

I AM sure many Plymothians of a certain age remember the 1970s to mid-1990s, when Plymouth had excellent emergency health service provision, with two A&E departments and fully-functional mental health, primary care and dentistry sectors. The question is, what has gone wrong that today we have a dysfunctional health provision that individuals now fear ringing 999 in case an ambulance does not arrive for many hours?

In a recent case, a friend of mine, an elderly lady living near Tavistock with a suspected stroke, had to wait 16 hours for an ambulance. Worse still, when the ambulance arrived it came from Exeter due to no ambulances being available from Plymouth.

Local media have done their best recently to highlight the stacking of ambulances at our ED unit, most importantly patients not receiving proper care and, worse still, these ambulances not being available for emergency calls.

If we look back 24 years to January 8, 2000 the Western Morning News headline was “Hospital crisis will get worse”, and went on... “It’s like the summer of 1940 here. The spirit of the Blitz keeps us going but we are not a nation at war,” said Derriford surgeon Colin Ferguson.

What has changed? Derriford A&E became a national story, including a dedicated current affairs programme on the Sir Trevor McDonald show. The stories of people suffering and lives being lost due to treatment delays; “staff hanging on by their finger tips at the A&E and not one spare bed in intensive care”.

The question is, what has changed today? People can draw a comparison with the current crisis to that of 2000, in that the door to emergency care, now renamed ED, is having an existential crisis year on year. Why should I care about Derriford’s ED problems?