The Anonymous Widower

Do We Need To Close More Hospitals?

I’ve believed that we have too many hospitals for a long time. Often politics mean that the needs of getting votes come before the needs of good healthcare. No-one would ever get elected, if they were in favour of closing their local hospital.

When I lived near Newmarket, we had two hospitals at the same distance away, Addenbrooke’s and Bury St. Edmunds.  The first is a world-class facility and the second is a typical general hospital on a cramped site with bad transport links.

No-one ever chose to go to Bury St. Edmunds and I always remember once turning up at A & E there in the middle of the night to find no-one waiting, but it still took me three hours to be seen. The whole hospital should have been down-graded years ago. This is unlikely to happen, as the powers that be in Bury still resent the fact that Ipswich became the county town, when West and East Suffolk were merged. So we all pay extra through our taxes for local vanity.

So should we close more hospitals? Lord Cross who used to run the NHS, apparently thinks so according to this report on the BBC.

September 1, 2011 - Posted by AnonW | Health, News | Addenbrooke's, Bury St. Edmunds, Hospitals, Tax