Shiny new buildings will not guarantee hospital’s future

• ON December 19, 1955, the proposed closing of the maternity ward of the now-demolished Royal Northern Hospital in Holloway was raised by Eric Fletcher, MP for East Islington, in Parliament. He got short shrift from Iain Macleod, the health minister. 
On February 23, 1971, Michael O’Halloran, MP for Islington North, said in Parliament that rumours were in circulation among medical staff of the Royal Northern, and statements had appeared in local newspapers, to the effect that the hospital would be phased out. Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security Michael Allison reassured the MP that the hospital’s future was numbered in years and he was confident its role was secure.
Despite almost washing his hands of the whole matter of the Royal Northern as being someone else’s responsibility, Mr Allison seemed happy that the radiotherapy department of the Royal Northern would transfer to the Royal Free, saying it would make room for another 20 acute beds. 
In 2010 we know that when departments in hospitals walk the whole hospital may not be too far behind.
Further reading of Hansard reports online makes one realise that your average MP isn’t a miracle worker. The MPs involved were bamboozled by cleverly-worked-out answers to their concerns. Mr O’Halloran was being assured that the Royal Northern was safe while at the same time being told the future of hospitals in general was insecure. 
This way of thinking translates itself into the physical world. For example, the Royal Northern was refurbished at great expense, with work going on up to two or three years before its complete demise. A nurse’s home had a complete makeover and was then suddenly abandoned without any of the staff moving in.
So don’t trust those shiny new buildings as any guarantee of permanency.
WILSON JOHN HAIRE
Lulot Gardens, N19

• AXING Whittington Hospital A&E would mean incredibly difficult journeys either to a hospital in the centre of London, or to a hospital that is quite a distance from any major Tube or bus route and is surrounded by congested roads for most of the day. Losing Whittington’s A&E is tantamount to a death sentence for some, and creates a hellish journey for most others.
We urge all sections of the community – the elderly, families, individuals, students, schools, places of worship, businesses and community groups, everyone who uses or is a potential user of A&E services – to join our non-political, independent campaign to save Whittington’s A&E.
We are at pains to understand why the NHS is about to put forward proposals for changes in services at Whittington Hospital which include the closure of its vital A&E. Access to health services, particularly emergency ones, is an important human right in the UK. 
Islington is the eighth-most deprived borough in England. Expecting Islington, and indeed Haringey, residents to travel so much farther to one of two hospitals in Camden is to penalise the poorest inhabitants of a borough which has one of the highest rates of child poverty in London. It is a dereliction of duty of care for the NHS to continue with these proposals.
Depriving Islington of an important service would inevitably lead to other closures. When A&E closes there is an unstoppable cascade which leads to other health services also shutting. And that in turn leads to less money being spent on patients and funding being withdrawn.
We would like as many groups and individuals as possible to join our campaign to show how passionately people feel on this issue – there is real strength in numbers. Either visit our website at dwhc.wordpress.com/about/, email us at defendwhittington@googlemail.com or call us on 020 7263 7817.
We are asking as many people as possible to go to the next public meeting at Archway Methodist Church Hall at 7pm on Monday to show NHS officials just how strongly we, as a community, feel about this indefensible threat to our health service.
We also call on NHS London to listen to the people of Islington, Camden and Haringey, and not to put forward any options that propose the closure of A&E. 
DEFEND THE WHITTINGTON HOSPITAL COALITION

• WE are delighted to support the Defend the Whittington Hospital Coalition, formed by people to oppose the Department of Health/NHS proposal to close the A&E department. We would urge readers to put the date of the planned mass demonstration against the closure – Saturday, February 27 – in their diaries now. The plan is to march from Highbury Fields to the hospital, assembling at noon – cat masks optional.
This area has already seen the loss of the Royal Northern Hospital. Now it is being suggested that residents should travel to the Royal Free in Hampstead in case of accident or emergency. Anyone who has travelled in an ambulance to A&E on their own or with an injured or sick friend or relative will know just how important it is that the journey time should be kept to an absolute minimum. Sometimes this can literally mean the difference between life and death and in many more cases it leads to unnecessary acute distress and suffering.
Hospitals and health centres are vital public services. We need to keep them local – and fight the creeping privatisation of the NHS.   
EMMA DIXON
Parliamentary candidate, Green Party, Islington North