25 November - Queen Mary’s Hospital protest against closure
This
was the scene last night when 100 people turned up to hear John Hemming-Clark
speak about the closure of Queen Mary’s A&E. John stood at the General
Election as the Save Queen Mary’s candidate but was out-manoeuvred by
the Conservative candidate who promised to keep it open - but didn’t.
Despite condemning the closure no Bexley councillor bothered to turn
up, thereby more or less proving my contention that most of them lacked any
sincerity at their meeting a month ago
and were merely going through the motions in the hope of looking good.
On
the bus home I spoke to a nurse who explained to me how the knock-on effect of
losing A&E was causing wards to be closed and reeled off a list of four or five.
She said it was estimated that 30,000 patients a year would be turned away and some
of them would undoubtedly die as a direct result of management decisions.
The management and Streather in particular were “all liars”. With less than two
weeks notice she had been told she must transfer to either the Princess
Royal in Farnborough or the Queen Elizabeth in Woolwich. Since we were on a 229
heading for Thamesmead I was surprised to hear her say she had opted for the
P.R.U. and asked why. “Because you hear so many dreadful things about Q.E.H.”
she said. I can only agree and if you have half an hour to spare you can
read more.
Doctor Streather and Sawicka were both prepared to put their names to letters much of which were
pure fiction and showed them to have falsified their records. When that was proved they
blamed an unnamed doctor who could no longer be located. How convenient. That doctor was
excellent and the failures were wholly administrative but Streather and co. were
only able to blame others for their failures.