Letter – Smaller hospitals are right answer
Tuesday 22nd February 2011, 11:29AM GMT.
Reading reports on hospital sites and staffing, I wonder where the local hospital has disappeared to?
I have constantly advocated small, very local, hospitals as opposed to big wasteful hospitals, where people can visit and specialists can call on a regular basis to consult and operate.
The trouble is that the area was and probably still is administered by division 15 in Birmingham.
Losing our lovely hospital in Oswestry because of the the division office in Birmingham showed what the loss of local hospitals means.
I had to attend hospital for treatment and at 90 years of age was driven by ambulance from Oswestry to Telford, more than 40 miles each way. The cost of travel and driver’s time could scarcely be justified, but was caused by the centralisation of hospitals.
Had I been admitted to Telford the lack of visitors would have been very upsetting. When I was admitted to the wartime Oswestry & District Hospital, I could see friends and relatives on a regular basis, helping my recovery.
From Oswestry along 40 miles of the A5 to Telford is a hazardous journey not many visitors would wish to undertake.
So much for Telford as a central hospital for Oswestry, Whitchurch, Wem and the North Wales area once covered by Oswestry and District Hospital.
Centralisation of health care could bring about many deaths. The people responsible for advocating it, should have second thoughts.
Ted Roberts, Oswestry
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Part of the proposals for health care in Oswestry were scuppered by the creation of the Town Green. By now we would be well on the way to recreating some if not all of the old O&D facilities. But now that will never happen.
I am not sure that I would want specialist surgeons to be travelling around Shropshire to do one op here and another there – the chances are that only a few would or could be done each day increasing the waiting lists. I also wonder if each theatre could be equipped with EVERY piece of equipment needed. The complexity of modern surgery means that the old time surgeon who could whip out your tonsils or appendix or whatever has and is being replaced by someone who knows all there is to say repairing a heart valve, but nothing about a kneecap.
I agree that I would probably hate to spend days at Telford – but if that meant that I could come out fixed up and ready to go wouldn’t that be better?
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“From Oswestry along 40 miles of the A5 to Telford is a hazardous journey not many visitors would wish to undertake.”
People from east Shropshire have to do this journey in the opposite direction in order to go to the Robert Jones & Agnes Hunt hospital at Gobowen, but you don’t hear them bleating.
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We used to have nice small cottage hospital around the county that were perfect for people just before they were dischage fully from hospital and I’m sure in those days we didn’t have bed blocking like we do now
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Yes nice small cottage hospitals where many were taken and died simply because they went to a hospital which did not have the facilities required to save their life.
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When my time comes, Mr Finch, if I cannot die at home, I would much rather die in my local cottage hospital than in some impersonal processing facility in Telford or Shrewsbury. I probably know many of the staff in our local cottage hospital and may even have shared a pint or two with some of them – much nicer to die among friends when the time comes, eh??
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