Bolingbroke Hospital Gets The Chop

At the January meeting of St George’s Trust Board came the expected announcement that the ‘Bolingbroke Hospital was, ‘surplus to requirements’. No mention was made of the £2 million of taxpayers money that had been spent on the hospital only a few years before to renovate two wards. No sooner had the money been spent, when it was discovered that the wards were a fire risk, something that had been know, according to an internal report carried out into the travesty,
for some 18 years. Needless to say no heads rolled and no-one received even a slapped wrist.
As always, at the January meeting no-one on the Trust Board questioned the decision, and without even a discussion it all went through on the nod.
Some-one there you might have thought would have said, ‘is this a good time to sell-what with house prices plummeting’ ? Or even, ’could we utilize the space’-given that St George’s faces a daily crisis over lack of beds ? No-one on the Trust Board raised a single objection and there was not even a vote.
The decision to sell the Bolingbroke had of course much more to do with St George’s financial situation than anything else. St George’s finances are in a mess, and one way to get out of that mess is to sell off even more of the family silver. Something similar is happening on a grander scale with Springfield Hospital.
It’s the same story all over the NHS. Cash strapped Hospitals and Primary Care Trusts are
selling off ‘our property’ for short term gain. It must be stopped.
We need a properly funded integrated NHS that plans for the long term future.
An NHS that is publically owned and democratically controlled