Hand Back Our Hospital - your views

2:50pm Tuesday 13th October 2009 in Hand Back Our Hospital

Hand Back Our Hospital - your views Hand Back Our Hospital - your views

THE Bucks Free Press is calling on readers to air their views on the transferring of key hospital services to Stoke Mandeville Hospital - as the BFP gets ready to re-launch its Hand Back Our Hospital campaign.

Inpatient children's and women's services will transfer over to Stoke Mandeville on Monday in a controversial shake-up of healthcare services in south Bucks.

Now the BFP is reviving its Hand Back Our Hospital campaign, four years after it was first launched, in a bid to bring back a multi-purpose hospital back to High Wycombe.

We want readers to join us in calling for key services - such as Accident and Emergency, doctor-led births and the care of sick children - to be returned to Wycombe and south Bucks.

We want to hear from pregnant women who are about to face the potentially tough choice between the lengthy trip to Stoke Mandeville for doctor supported births or the shorter trip to Wycombe for the midwife-led birthing centre.

If you are about to give birth in the newly revamped maternity unit in Aylesbury – we want you to tell us about your experiences – good or bad.

If you are the parent of a sick child or you are concerned about how the move may affect your family, then get in touch.

Or if you are just a worried resident who fears for the future of our hospital, then tell us your views.

The BFP has campaigned relentlessly since the shake-up plans were first proposed in early 2004. Thousands of readers backed us, but the moves still went ahead. Now the paper is having one more try.

Editor Steve Cohen said: “While we realise this new campaign is too late to stop Monday's move, we want the people of Wycombe to make their feelings known now.

"There will be a General Election in the next few months, and we want the next government of this country – irrespective of its political colours – to have south Bucks’ health care concerns at the very top of its list.

“We want the people of Wycombe and south Bucks as a whole to not only have their hospital services returned to them, but for them to have more control over their key hospital services. And we know this wish reflects the views of a vast number of our readers.

“We do of course wish the new unit at Stoke Mandeville every success and we hope the public will keep on fundraising for services such as the Special Care Baby Unit when it moves there.

“We have to accept the reality that our services are now based there for the foreseeable future, while at the same time continuing to battle for the day when they can be returned to Wycombe. This will undoubtedly take years, but it would be wrong to give up now.

“So keep shouting as loud as you can until someone in power listens. If we don’t keep on campaigning, then one day in the future we might even find more devastating changes to our local health services.”

Email your your views, comments and opinions to bfpnews@london.newsquest.co.uk or call the newsdesk on 01494 755091.

Comments(24)

Catflap says...
4:16pm Tue 13 Oct 09

The powers that be at the hospital would have had to carry out a risk assessment with regards to the moves to Stoke. It would be very interesting to see the risk assesment and must be in the public interest. Freedom of Infomation act should give us the answers.

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mingming says...
4:53pm Tue 13 Oct 09

On sunday my 5 year old daughter had a fit, and was not coming out of it very well, a paramedic turnt up with in minutes of my call, my daughters lips were very blue, he gave her oxygen, and said she should go to hospital, it took 30 minutes for the ambuland to rrive from stoke, the driver had arrived from milton keynes, when we got in the ambulance there was no oxygen and very limited of what ever the other stuff was, insinuating if this was more serious it could have been fatel, althought having said that if this was out of hours we would have had to be driven to stoke not wycombe, the childrens ward is empty out patient even more so with beds staked in rooms and boxes to. my fear is it wont be long before a fatality happens, next time you see a blue light flashing as it did with my daughter more due to not haveing vital equipment, there for the need to get her in hospital sooner, the staff were good but the equipment is simply not there , why?.

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WycombeSuxers says...
6:23pm Tue 13 Oct 09

The move from Wycombe to Stoke by the doctor led maternity unit is a huge mistake, can you imagine a woman going into labour in Wycombe and something goes wrong (which it does often) and having to be moved to another hospital miles away while your baby could be in distress, im sorry but giving birth is hard enough without this worry. If i was an expectant mother i would go straight to Stoke because i wouldnt want to risk me or my baby dying. Women and their families are being let down, Wycombe is our local hospital and the services there should be absolute not bits and pieces, i truly fear for these babies and the future of our hospital.

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Gailxx says...
6:27pm Tue 13 Oct 09

It really worries me and I know we can all see it coming --- the end of the natioanl health service really and it's all down to (in my opinion) on letting people get benefits so easily. Years ago if you had a child etc. you would have had to work and earn to look after it. Nowadays you don't even have to be married
and you can get no end of benefits!"!!
I think it's all the benefits that people who are claiming that as caused the closure of our national health. The government shouldn't have made it so easy in the first place cos once you are on benefits it it truly hard to get out of it.

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Gailxx says...
6:28pm Tue 13 Oct 09

It really worries me and I know we can all see it coming --- the end of the natioanl health service really and it's all down to (in my opinion) on letting people get benefits so easily. Years ago if you had a child etc. you would have had to work and earn to look after it. Nowadays you don't even have to be married
and you can get no end of benefits!"!!
I think it's all the benefits that people who are claiming that as caused the closure of our national health. The government shouldn't have made it so easy in the first place cos once you are on benefits it it truly hard to get out of it.

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DeepThinker says...
7:35pm Tue 13 Oct 09

The BFP said:
"the BFP gets ready to re-launch its Hand Back Our Hospital campaign."
WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG?

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Works from home says...
9:23pm Tue 13 Oct 09

The people of Wycombe need to stand up and be counted. We are such a big town to lose these basic and necessary services. To have any impact the whole town needs to get behind the campaign.
Only the other day a friend and I were discussing what we could do about trying to get the services back as we were so shocked about what we have lost. So any action group that may be set up I'll be the first to join!!!!!!

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Chelseafan says...
9:38pm Tue 13 Oct 09

I took my son to Wycombe A&E on Friday night with a broken finger. They were very good in that they x-rayed it and strapped it up. We then had to take him to Stoke Mandeville on Saturday morning for 8am. He wasn't allowed anything to eat or drink in case he needed an operation. We spent 6 hours there being passed from the ward to A&E and back again because the doctor was so busy having to work on the ward and in A&E. The staff did their best best but were obviously over stretched. Also only living 2 minutes away from Wycombe Hospital but having to travel for half an hour to get my son some treatment is just bloody rediculous. To me this just proves that there is a need to have such facilities at both hospitals. It boils down to money. If the MPs and Chief Executives of the NHS took a pay cut instead of receiving huge pay increases, and put peoples health first, then peoples lives wouldn't be put at risk. What a load of political crap. Well done labour, you have failed again.

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DarrenHayday says...
7:48am Wed 14 Oct 09

I'm 200% committed to the campaign! Well done BFP

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WycombeSuxers says...
12:19pm Wed 14 Oct 09

This campaign should be pinned to the top of the forum, come on BFP!

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pumpkin says...
6:28pm Wed 14 Oct 09

Wycombe needs a good general hospital. At the moment it is maternity and emergency services, but where will it end? The lack of this facility may mean the old & sick having to get a couple of buses each way to see a consultant or for treatment because they may not be able to afford a taxi to cover the 30 mile round trip, do the powers that be care? Do they hell.

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Doom says...
6:30pm Wed 14 Oct 09

Lets not forget, the money grabbing smug senior management don’t even live in the county!
Why don’t they comment in these forums? If they think they are so right, why don’t they “educate” us??
This new campaign better work, because, believe me, Wycombe hospital is slowly, section by section, department by department, bit by bit, being closed down. This is our last chance.

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J B Blackett says...
6:57pm Wed 14 Oct 09

Doom wrote:
Lets not forget, the money grabbing smug senior management don’t even live in the county!
Why don’t they comment in these forums? If they think they are so right, why don’t they “educate” us??
This new campaign better work, because, believe me, Wycombe hospital is slowly, section by section, department by department, bit by bit, being closed down. This is our last chance.
Agreed , doom.
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This an ongoing saga - Wycombe is being stripped of civic, municipal assets and facilities by uncaring self-interest groups at local and county level.
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It's all part of the same strategies and tactics plotted by short-sighted small-time petty politicians.
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That's why the Hospital issue is so important ( like eg the swimming pool and other tax-payer and volunteer funded resources ).
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These devious cunning ill-intentioned oligarchs get their way by divide and rule methods ie by splitting the local folk's opinions by cherry picking areas to attack.
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Don't let the wicked scoundrels get away with it. Unite we stand otherwise we'll lose everything - and not just the hospital. It's all part of the same picture, I'm afraid.
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It's the gangs of slimey undemocratic politicians and unelected traitorous bureaucrats we need to get rid of.
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That's only my humble opinion of course.

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Watcher97 says...
9:09pm Wed 14 Oct 09

Firstly before i let off steam i want to say i have total admiration for the hard pressed and caring medical staff who are as much at the mercy of the management of buckinghamshire hospitals trust as the rest of us.
It saddens me to see the way in which services are being redistributed apparently to give the people of Bucks a better service. I can't remember being consulted over any of it.
The new wards at Stoke Mandeville may be state of the art or whatever term is being used to spin them into something they are not. The fact is that a new 19 bedded ward CANNOT replace the wards at BOTH hospitals which have been CLOSED. I suspect added together this came to rather more than 19 beds. This is 19 beds for a county of about half a million people! it is a county that the government has decided to build thousands of houses in thereby increasing the population by thousands. At the same time our hospitals seem to be shrinking so that it becomes a bit of a postcode lottery whether you get any treatment or die before you get to it.
It would be interesting to know how many people have died on route to hospital since services were moved compared to before when Wycombe had an A&E and Stoke Mandeville had a cardiac ward.
Previous commenters have talked about the distance to travel along appalling roads and distances for relatives to travel.People also now have to travel to Wycombe for operations, heart attack treatment when at one time they could be treated in Stoke Mandeville. The hospitals say "where the needs of the patient come first" , if this is the case why is all this still happening? Why are they not asking the patients, carers and staff what they want rather than ignoring their wishes and continuing to cut services.
Unlike these fat cats with their £100,000+ saleries most people cannot afford to go elsewhere and rely on services closer to their homes, services which are slowly being eroded.
Finally next time you go to Stoke Mandeville or Wycombe at the weekend have a look at the carparks, the staff ones seem to be mainly empty, does that tell you where a lot of the budget is going?Not on medical staff!

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jbwycombe says...
12:47pm Thu 15 Oct 09

We really need a general hospital in High Wycombe. Not only are lives endangered in travelling to Stoke Mandeville but patients visitors have a difficult time travelling to see them, denying recovering patients a much needed boost. This doesn't make sense!

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J B Blackett says...
1:13pm Thu 15 Oct 09

jbwycombe wrote:
We really need a general hospital in High Wycombe. Not only are lives endangered in travelling to Stoke Mandeville but patients visitors have a difficult time travelling to see them, denying recovering patients a much needed boost. This doesn't make sense!
Absolutely Correct.
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Our Health Service is being demolished locally by remote self-appointed arrogant stupid people with our best interests far from their thoughts.
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How do these people reconcile all the anomalies they are creating ?
I don't know and I think they don't !
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They are just creating Chaos throughout the NHS

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cowleywebley says...
4:15pm Fri 16 Oct 09

COME ON WYCOMBE WE ALL NEED TO JOIN THIS CAMPAIGN & KEEP OUR HOSPITAL. WE HAVE ALWAYS HAD A HOSPITAL IN THE TOWN & WE WON'T GIVE IT UP WITHOUT A FIGHT!

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dratcliffe4ss1935 says...
10:07am Mon 19 Oct 09

Hand our Hospital back In 2004 I had a Cardiac Arrest I was in the Royal B L HW Which is opposite the hospital and they saved my life I don!t think I would have made it to Stoke Mandeville

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Crackpot says...
12:30pm Tue 20 Oct 09

Let's not forget that Wycombe Hospital doesn't just serve the town of High Wycome, what about Marlow and other smaller surrounding towns? How on earth can Stoke Mandeville be expected to cope with such demand...as well as trying to clean up their already frightening RMSA reports??

Not only do we all NEED a general hospital in a town as large as HW but at this moment we are all STILL paying for one in our Council Tax bills! Does this mean that we will all now receive Tax rebates if we don't need to use it for a planned operation? I think not.

Also, do the 'powers that be' realise that when they are sitting in their private clinics 5 minutes from their cosy homes, that moving the facility from HW to Stoke Mandeville puts extra traffic on the roads, extra pressure and stress on the visiting relatives and most importantly extra trauma to the patient who has to endure that journey...which may or may not end up being the line between life and death? I think not.

It's time somebody in authority threw some common sense into the mix and put a STOP to this ridiculous arrangement before more lives are lost!

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Largo says...
6:48pm Tue 20 Oct 09

Where have you been Ferrell Cat? Up a gum tree I expect as the nurses and doctors are GAGGED by the hospital Trust board and the PCT: They are banned from talking to the press, or expressing their views in public or they face disciplinary action, even the SACK.

So come on stop bickering and let’s have some action from the people of High Wycombe and Marlow. Freedom is NOT free and you will not get to keep your hospital unless you FIGHT for it.
Get behind the Bucks Free Press to campaign to get our services back. By taking off 4 floors of the hospital this makes it easier for them to close it down as they will have less and less patients to treat, then it will be, “ We have les patients so it’s not worth keeping it open” Where have you heard it all before. Why from the Hospital Board that has just awarded itself a 19% pay rise.
Anne Eden gets well in excess of £150,000 a year, that’s £7,800 a week; more than an old age pensioner gets to live on for a year! With other benefits, pension etc that works out at nearly a quarter of a million £!!! Ask your selves the question. Is she worth it? Deliver a Hospital Trust which is the worst in England, now gives less service to the people of Wycombe and Marlow and get paid an excessive salary. CAN I HAVE A JOB PLEASE?
Wake up Wycombe and Marlow or you will lose your hospital completely.

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rahussein says...
11:48am Wed 21 Oct 09

Hand Back Our Hospital
Wycombe General Hospital

Because this is now a thriving Town with night economy, thus more and more people are moving here, increasingly homes being built, & to a greater extent businesses are coming here too, which signify we need a thriving general hospital.

We need to keep this hospital open and make certain it is can provide the services needed for our population that is set to rise considerably and to meet up the government’s massive home building targets,

For this reason, we must all work together,
The People, The Hospital Staff, the councillors and the MP & the businesses
To make the biggest protest possible in order to make sure that we keep all the essential facilities/services for a caring Wycombe General Hospital.


Therefore I really support this campaign and there is no better medium/voice than that of BFP expressing the voice of our one community adding support to this honourable cause for saving our hospital

I believe the ‘One Community’ of High Wycombe District must make the biggest show possible in order to achieve our 'Vision' for the healthier and successful future of the residents of the county of Buckinghamshire.

With Best Wishes

Ricki Akhter-Hussein
Chairman/Community Advocates
www.bucksinfo.net/bu
cks-signposting-advo
cacy

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DebbieP says...
2:31pm Thu 22 Oct 09

Just a few points
* When are they going to build a by pass from High Wycombe to Aylesbury
* How will the hospital cope when the 8000 new homes planned in Aylesbury are built
* How will they cope with a major pile up on the M40.
* Taking away women and child services does not attact young families to the area.
* How many babies will need to die before this decision is reversed
* Many older people dont drive, how will they be able to visit partners, friends and families freely.
* Why should a major town like Wycombe have a cottage hospital, we are not a village.
* Will the powers that be only be happy when the demise of High Wycombe is complete and it is just a suburb of Aylesbury, why dont we let them have our football team as well, `Aylesbury Argyll`.

Personnally, I will not be having my next baby at Wycombe or Stoke Mandeville, and will opt for a home birth as Wycombe offers me nothing more than I would get at home. If I have complications I would rather travel on a fast well lite road to Wexham Park. Surely home births are more of a drain on resources, but im sure many woman will opt for this is the future.

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Watcher97 says...
3:41pm Mon 26 Oct 09

Debbie p states "I would rather travel on a fast well lit road to Wexham Park. "
Perhaps this is what the hospital trust wants, and if it really is nearer/faster to go to Wexham park why wouldn't you ?? is this a case of driving people away?
Unfortunately buckinghamshire hospitals don't seem to care where you go, at least they seem to be making it quite clear that it isn't wycombe, where the needs of the patient come first, oh yeah as long as you don't live in bucks.

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traceylowden says...
3:42pm Wed 4 Nov 09

On a few occasions my son has beome so ill that our GP in Marlow has instructed me to take him straight to A+E at Wycombe, and not even to stop to collect an overnight bag - every second counts, I was told. How does this square up with me now having to taking him to Stoke Mandeville for any future occurrences? Its madness and incredibly difficult for parents when a child is in hopital and needs his mum/dad but there are children at home who also need to be looked after. The terrible roads, traffic really add to the distress at an already distressing time. Lives will be lost, I'm sure!

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