Save Lewisham Hospital: A child protests
A youthful protestor campaigns to save the Children's A&E Department at Lewisham Hospital in south east London, at a protest prior to a consultation in Lewisham (at the Calabash Centre on George Lane, in Catford) on the evening of December 4, 2012. At the consultation, Matthew Kershaw, the NHS Special Administrator who is proposing to close Lewisham Hospital's A&E Department, faced a largely angry crowd of hundreds of local residents, who were squeezed into the main room of the building -- an NHS day centre -- and overflowed into two adjacent rooms.
Lewisham's A&E Department -- and Children's A&E Department -- face closure, and its maternity services and other acute services also face the axe, not as a result of financial problems or clinical care problems at Lewisham, but because of serious financial problems at a neighbouring trust, the South London Healthcare Trust, which is burdened with outrageous PFI debts.
Kershaw is acting under new legislation for dealing with bankrupt trusts, but he and his team (four of whom were also at the meeting) have broadened their remit -- I believe illegally -- to include the whole of south east London's hospitals, and, in particular, to target Lewisham, on the basis that only four of south east London's five A&Es can continue to be funded. If the plans go ahead, after a consultation period of just five weeks, which is derisory, there will be just one A&E Department for the 750,000 people in three London boroughs -- Lewisham, Greenwich and Bexley -- whereas campaigners, myself included, insist that every London borough (like Lewisham, with its population of 250,000) needs its own fully functioning A&E Department.
For further information, and for advice on how to respond to the consultation before the deadline of December 13, 2012, see: www.savelewishamhospital.com/how-to-respond-to-tsa/
Also see: www.flickr.com/photos/andyworthington/sets/72157632089076...
And: www.andyworthington.co.uk/2012/11/03/save-lewisham-ae-as-...
www.andyworthington.co.uk/2012/11/09/lewisham-residents-r...
www.andyworthington.co.uk/2012/11/25/save-lewisham-hospit...
UPDATE JUNE 2017: I've just set up a Facebook page, 'The State of London', featuring, every day, a photo of London from my five years of cycling around and taking photos of the capital. Please join me! www.facebook.com/thestateoflondon/
Save Lewisham Hospital: A child protests
A youthful protestor campaigns to save the Children's A&E Department at Lewisham Hospital in south east London, at a protest prior to a consultation in Lewisham (at the Calabash Centre on George Lane, in Catford) on the evening of December 4, 2012. At the consultation, Matthew Kershaw, the NHS Special Administrator who is proposing to close Lewisham Hospital's A&E Department, faced a largely angry crowd of hundreds of local residents, who were squeezed into the main room of the building -- an NHS day centre -- and overflowed into two adjacent rooms.
Lewisham's A&E Department -- and Children's A&E Department -- face closure, and its maternity services and other acute services also face the axe, not as a result of financial problems or clinical care problems at Lewisham, but because of serious financial problems at a neighbouring trust, the South London Healthcare Trust, which is burdened with outrageous PFI debts.
Kershaw is acting under new legislation for dealing with bankrupt trusts, but he and his team (four of whom were also at the meeting) have broadened their remit -- I believe illegally -- to include the whole of south east London's hospitals, and, in particular, to target Lewisham, on the basis that only four of south east London's five A&Es can continue to be funded. If the plans go ahead, after a consultation period of just five weeks, which is derisory, there will be just one A&E Department for the 750,000 people in three London boroughs -- Lewisham, Greenwich and Bexley -- whereas campaigners, myself included, insist that every London borough (like Lewisham, with its population of 250,000) needs its own fully functioning A&E Department.
For further information, and for advice on how to respond to the consultation before the deadline of December 13, 2012, see: www.savelewishamhospital.com/how-to-respond-to-tsa/
Also see: www.flickr.com/photos/andyworthington/sets/72157632089076...
And: www.andyworthington.co.uk/2012/11/03/save-lewisham-ae-as-...
www.andyworthington.co.uk/2012/11/09/lewisham-residents-r...
www.andyworthington.co.uk/2012/11/25/save-lewisham-hospit...
UPDATE JUNE 2017: I've just set up a Facebook page, 'The State of London', featuring, every day, a photo of London from my five years of cycling around and taking photos of the capital. Please join me! www.facebook.com/thestateoflondon/