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Preventing the creation of NHSplc
February 3, 2006 3:39 PM
By Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP in The Islington Tribune
By Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP in The Islington Tribune
St Barts hospital in London
Dear Sir,
The local Labour MP (Jan 27th) seems pleased that Health minister Patricia Hewitt has expressed herself 'sympathetic' to the case for keeping Bart's hospital open.
Well, big deal! I am disgusted that this is the best a Labour government can do nine years after it in came to power on a pledge to safeguard the NHS and specifically to save Bart's from closure. A large part of the support for Labour in Islington South and Finsbury in the 1997 general election - and even last May - was based squarely on this solemn promise in response to the Save Bart's Campaign in which I was extremely active alongside local residents and the splendid Wendy Meade.
Now however the Labour government is seeking to privatise parts of our health system just as it has done to our Tube network. No wonder the Tories regard Tony Blair as the true heir to Mrs Thatcher!
I would not have wished us to be starting from here. I would have preferred that Bart's instead of UCH stay our genuine full-service local general hospital for residents of Finsbury, Clerkenwell and south Islington, which successive Tory and Labour governments refused to 'allow' us to have. And I am not a fan of imposing the private finance method of funding the refurbishment of Bart's and the Royal London.
But for the government now to refuse even this scheme for Bart's to stay as a centre of excellence in cancer and cardiac care would represent a massive betrayal of local people by Labour, and one they will not forget.
Yours sincerely
Sarah Ludford
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