Hat-tip: Image from Hunts Post I attended the march on Saturday morning to “Save Hinchingbrooke Hospital” along with my boys, Oliver and Jasper. Lara was working in the hospital that day.
I won’t beat around the bush. I won’t pretend that the earth moved for me. To be honest, I thought it was pretty weak and I was disappointed.
Huntingdonshire has an adult population of about 150k. All reports suggest that around 1000 attended. That is about ½ a percent. It is not exactly the sound of thunder, eh?
No doubt others will be more upbeat. The media, who played a large role in organising the event, will crop the pictures and the news reports to make the crowd look big; the Unions will say it was as good as could be expected and local politicians (all except this one that is) will say it was an effective demonstration of public opinion.
This local politician will say only this: If we are really want to save our hospital, we are going to have to do are darn site better than that. A turn out of ½ a percent is music to the Health Authority’s ears. If that is genuinely the level of concern in this area, then we will lose the hospital for sure. Even if they don’t level it in one go, they will bleed it of services over a few years until it becomes untenable.
Signing a petition is all very well, but we all know just how little effort that requires. What is needed are feet on the streets, a rally that fills Hinchingbrooke Park and some speakers that set the crowd alight.
This Government is spending at least double the amount of YOUR money and taxes on health services, and yet they threaten to close our hospital. Square that circle if you can? We have a right to these services and we must fight much harder to keep them.
If we do not fight to keep Hinchingbrooke, heart attack victims will die on the A14 and mothers who hemorrhage in labour will lose their babies on the way to Peterborough.
The simple fact of the matter is that the unnecessary loss of the hospital in Huntingdonshire will inevitably lead to the unnecessary loss of life in Huntingdonshire.
1 comment:
one thing: thank you for being honest about the turnout, or at least what you see as the turn out. so may time i ahve been on demonstrations and both sides have manipulated the figures for their own ends. it makes an impact when a politican is prepared to say what the people who attende actually saw.
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