Press Statement
For immediate release
WE WILL CONTINUE THE FIGHT TO SAVE CITY HOSPITAL ACCIDENT AND EMERGENCY WARD IN 2008
Local residents are shocked at the announcement by Health Minister Alan Johnson that he would uphold the decision to close the Accident and Emergency Ward in City Hospital.
How dare Alan Johnson claim “I am satisfied that the proposals are in the interests of the local health services and users.”
Let him come to Birmingham and ask the public what we think. The public meeting held by the Evening Mail clearly showed the opinion of the public, as did the thousands of signatures collected against the closure.
One of the campaign organisers, Raghib Ahsan, says “we should be able to expect our Labour government to listen to the people in our area, not turn their backs on us. We will continue to campaign to save the A&E ward.”
Campaigners have called a protest for 2pm on Tuesday 1st January 2008.
Raghib says “we have called the protest on New Year’s day to make it clear we will campaign every day of the year if necessary to stop this closure”.
For more information call
Raghib Ahsan on 07941 284 617
John Tyrrell on 0121 241 7896
Pete Jackson on 07977 057 902
As an early Christmas present Alan Johnson has announced that Birmingham’s City Road Hospital’s A & E department will move to Sandwell. This is a prelude to the closure of both hospitals to build a new single hospital in Sandwell. Actually it’s not likely to please Sandwell constituents either since the proposed site is well away from the centre of the borough.
All this is in spite of public meetings where there has been massive opposition from Birmingham residents and hospital staff. One meeting I went to, when the joint trust board decided on the move, members of the board just sat there without saying anything. It appears to be dominated by Sandwell. And who should come into the room late but Bill Thomas, Leader of Sandwell Council, who turned out to be a board member too. He promptly fell asleep. There is no representative from Birmingham City Council as far as I’m aware. Trying to get information through the “freedom of information” on the trust’s website is like trying to get blood out of a stone. Looking for details in the glossy self-congratulatory Annual Report like finding a needle in a haystack. Transparent they’re not. This lot are paid, I think it was £5,000 a year last I heard. Doubtless it’s gone up by now. I get sweet FA for being a governor of a school which entails far more than sitting in on meetings once or twice a year and dozing. That’s New Labour.
There’s a group of people here who are influential in New Labour, some of them being members of the notorious “Labour First” that ganged up to support Khalid Mahmood as MP for Perry Barr.
Khalid was at another public meeting organised by Birmingham Post and Mail. He was asked directly what his position was to which he replied “I will do whatever my constituents decide”. So what will he do now. Over to you Khalid!

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At this afternoon’s meeting of the Sandwell and Hospital Trust a presentation was given on the findings following consultation. The written comments were from a very small sample with many more women than men responding. Older people were more likely to respond than the young, and, most worrying, the majority who responded were white British. This indicates that the Trust has failed to connect with large sections of our diverse community whose health needs are so great.
The composition of the Trust Board seems odd too. Its chair is a Sandwell Councillor, and later the Leader of Sandwell Council arrived to take his seat on the board. He appeared to sleep through most of the proceedings. This means that there appears to be little representation of Birmingham. Sandwell will end up with a brand new hospital while Birmingham’s will close.
My point that this is a hospital closure was confirmed by the chair who felt that having new facilities and closing down 150 year old buildings justified this. One speaker confirmed that a number of specialisms had already gone to University and Heartland Hospitals. Health is now like virtually everything else part of a competitive culture rather than one based on need.

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City Road Hospital in Birmingham and Sandwell Hospital have already joined together within the Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospital Trust, Now there are radical plans to rationalise services in the mid term with plans to build a new hospital on a new site in Sandwell between the two in the longer term. The Trust has embarked on a series of consultation meetings, although the impression left is that decisions have already been made.
The Birmingham Evening Mail set up a meeting at the Afro-Caribbean Millenium Centre last night (16/1/2007) with the difference that there were two panels with opposing views. About 200 people attended and most were unconvinced by the Chief Executive’s explanation. It appears that this is a top down exercise.
Some of those who worked at the hospitals, particularly the nearby City Hospital in Dudley Road, were critical of services which had already been cut. Facilities for children and young people have disappeared. Recent job losses have left people demoralised. Having waited in A and E for four hours for a young person to be admitted I had to wonder what was going on, particularly when the sign board was saying that waiting was due to a shortage of staff. The presentation announced the building of new up-to-date facilities (no dissent on that) but there appeared to be uncertainty of what could be provided given the budget available.

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