HANDS off our accident and emergency services.
That was the message from more than 800 protestors who filled Bishop Auckland’s Market Square on Saturday.
Banner-waving protestors cheered as speaker after speaker denounced proposals to strip Bishop Auckland General Hospital of its accident and emergency department and acute medical services.
The scale of the opposition to plans to concentrate acute medical services at Darlington Memorial Hospital and the University Hospital of North Durham – at the expense of Bishop Auckland – were a direct challenge to proposals which are currently the subject of a public consultation.
Speakers also denounced the consultation as a sham and urged County Durham Primary Care Trust and County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust to go back to the drawing board.
Officials were warned that the proposal to replace Bishop Auckland’s A & E department with an urgent care centre will mean many patients having to travel much further to have emergency treatment.
They claim this will put lives in jeopardy, particularly people from rural areas such as Upper Weardale.
Clive Auld, spokesman for the town’s Save Our Hospital (SOH) campaign, which organised the event, told the crowd: “Thank you very much for coming to show your disapproval.
It is tremendous.”
He added: “People from Bishop Auckland are not going to allow the trust to decimate what we have here, because that is exactly what is happening now.”
Mr Auld criticised moves which he said meant that a privately- built hospital which would cost the taxpayer £250m over 30 years would end up as a virtual cottage hospital.
Helen Goodman, MP for Bishop Auckland, said: “We are here to defend a very important NHS principle – everybody should have equal access to healthcare.”
She accused the trust officials of being ‘arrogant’ in telling her that the majority of people in the county were in favour of the proposals when 13,000 people had signed a petition opposing the changes.
“This is like something from the Soviet Union, 50 years ago,” she added.
County Durham MEP Fiona Hall said: “We have all been badly let down and we need to work on this together. We need prior consultation, not making decisions first.”
She said she would take this up with the trust, the strategic health authority and the Government.
John Redman, headteacher at Cockton Hill Infant School, was cheered when he told the crowd: “We want it to have more services, not less.
“We are saying we want a better hospital so they had better act on it.”
Mr Redman said it was unacceptable to expect children in pain to have to endure being transferred to Darlington or Durham.
Brian Myers, chairman of Greater Willington Town Council, warned that people face “a hard fight to retain the decent services we all worked so hard to secure”.
He insisted that Bishop Auckland was ‘best situated’ to provide good hospital services to the entire county rather than any other town.
The ultimate decision as to whether the proposals go ahead will be made by County Durham Primary Care Trust, which is now known as NHS County Durham.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article