Hospital cuts u-turn 'just a smokescreen'
John Palethorpe ... ‘foolish and naive to believe trust are trying to save services' A SCARBOROUGH man who helped organise the campaign against cuts to health services in the town has accused hospital bosses of putting up a "smoke screen while they carry on with their intended course of action of decimating NHS services in the area". John Palethope, organiser of Save Scarborough Hospital, said: “It would be foolish and naive in the extreme to believe that the trust are attempting to save our hospital and our services.”
Mr Palethorpe says the announcement by health chiefs that the trust does not have to repay its £20.7million historic debt, saving hundreds of jobs, only came about as a result of adverse public opinion and pressure being brought to bear against them. “In my opinion this is a smokescreen and devious ploy by the trust to divert the public's attention and anger away from the trust,” he said.
“The main aim of the Save Scarborough Hospital Campaign was to have the debt completely written off or drastically reduced and obtain realistic funding for the future of our hospital. Not one of these criteria has been met by last Thursday's announcement.
“The offer gives absolutely nothing except a short stay of execution, the staff have been moved from the death cell and back onto death row which will now in effect be a longer lingering death of health services for the whole region.”
Ann Baillie, a member of the Honey campaign group, said staff had been put through a great deal of stress in the past few months and managers had offered no apology for the distress they had suffered.
She said: “We had members of staff getting their homes valued and looking at schools in other areas because they thought they were going to lose their jobs. It's been a terrible time for people and we've all been under a great deal of stress.
“The recent announcement doesn't mean we can afford to take our eye off the ball. There are still many issues which need to be resolved including the matter of years of under-funding.
“We're still urging as many people as possible to go to North Yorkshire County Council's Scrutiny of Health meeting on September 19 at the Spa.”
Workers at Bridlington Hospital say that, hours after chief executive Iain McInnes told workers in Scarborough hundreds of jobs had been saved, he was telling them wards would be closed and services transferred to Scarborough.