27th September 2006

Greens welcome sanity regarding Maternity Hospital but condemn Weavers Crost decision and increased privatisation of health service. Read Martin Whitesides' letter: 

Some good news - some bad!  The decision to keep open Stroud Maternity Hospital is a rare act of sanity - and is a tribute to the thousands of people who made their anger known - and the newspapers who supported the local campaign.  However the decision to still try to close our local first class provision for the elderly mentally ill at Weavers Croft in Stroud is a decision that beggars belief - does our Primary Care Trust or the Government understand the pain that this will cause - do they even care?

Crisis can be an overused word, but in the case of the NHS it’s difficult to get across the scale of the problem without using it. Most trusts are reporting that financial deficits are forcing them to make cut backs. Yet we hear the government is putting more money into the NHS than ever before. For once they are telling the truth. So why the problem?

The answer is simple, it's not a question of how much money, but where it goes. While nurses, doctors and other health staff struggle to provide an excellent service, a few (highly paid) top managers and ever accelerating privatisation are destroying our NHS from within.  Examples include Primary Care Trusts being forced to spend at least 10% of their budgets on private providers and the out-sourcing of NHS deliveries this month means privatising a 20th of the NHS in one go! Private companies have become more deeply entrenched in the health service than ever before, on a level that would have been unimaginable even under the Tories.

It is usually more expensive to deliver public services through the private sector because the private sector must make a profit for shareholders. Money is being sucked out of our NHS. The Green party is the only party to support the national campaign ‘Keep Our NHS Public’. Please sign the national online petition under 'Campaigns' at: www.glosgreenparty.org.uk

Cllr Martin Whiteside
Hillside, Claypits Lane, Thrupp, Stroud
Stroud District Green Party Parliamentary Spokesperson

Read more re local health cuts by clicking here or using the search engine on this website.