Yes, you heard it first, Louth Hospital IS NOT CLOSING. (Well not at the moment anyway).
Throughout Louth there is general apathy that Louth Hospital is going nowhere and its “business as usual” – even the leader of LCHS says so. He told Louth Town Council “nothing that he had seen”. Our local MP brands the Fighting 4 Louth Hospital group as scaremongers. Everything is tickety-boo.
Here’s the TRUTH Backed Up With FACTS
In 2012 the Conservative Government made radical reforms to healthcare through the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Two things happened…
Louth Hospital Accident and Emergency closed due to “lack of use” and was downgraded to an Urgent Care Centre initially run by “out of hours GP services”. When the GP contracts were renewed that changed.
Also many hospital assets were “transferred” to a private company called NHS Property Services Limited, with a focus on profits and shareholders getting 5 figure payments. This company is a private limited company and as such all information is freely available on Companies House including assets, accounts and shareholders etc. The company number is 07888110.
After this…
Services slowly began to decline and gradually services have gone from Louth Hospital, such as Cardiology, acute surgical services, ward closures as these happened, it was done at such a pace that nobody really noticed. Recently the phlebotomy laboratory has closed and blood that has been taken is now transported at additional cost to a laboratory in Grimsby.
Then came the introduction of services provided by private companies such as CareUK – a name or logo most of you will be familiar with. Again another private company, with a myriad of related companies headed by a fancy website and loads of companies listed on Companies House, all trading for profit to fill shareholder’s pockets.
Last year, the Conservative Government poured millions of taxpayers’ pounds into the creation of private consultancy companies to generate “Sustainability and Transformation Plans“which set out to map out how to “improve” healthcare in all 44 regions. In our region, it documented the “merging of Louth and Skegness Hospital services into one site” and the “creation of a community hub” – another fact denied by our MP, healthcare bosses and providers. At a recent Town Council meeting, local GP and CEO of several private healthcare consultancy companies, Dr Neal Parkes let slip that a consortium of GPs were indeed putting together plans and applying for funding of a “Community Hub” at Louth Hospital.
So What Is The Truth? If anyone knows the truth please leave your comments below….
(Cartoon is courtesy of local cartoonist Jane Air)
The truth is, they are all lining their pockets. They deny that services are being lost at Louth, and ignore those who point out that in fact, many services have already gone. They ridicule the people who show them for up for what they are. Our local MP is a joke. She has no credibility in Louth, which is why she never appears here in public. The local Tories, (ably backed up by their “Independent” mouthpiece), failed in their aim to close our protest down. In fact, it was such a failure, that they resorted to personal attacks on people from as young as 14 years, to people in their 70’s. The Mayor “shut down” a protester attempting to have his say, at the town council so called “public forum”.
So, we have learned TWO things from this episode. 1. Someone is planning a coupe at our local hospital and 2. the local Conservatives, led by our MP, have shut down the right to democratic process in Louth.