There are currently 48 beds at Elliott Dynes, which is a purpose-built unit. After the cut, there will only be 14 beds for this service, based on general wards without the necessary facilities. There is no indication that any extra provision is being made for community-based services. We challenge the Trust management to make public the details of any such plans. In reality, two-thirds of the service is being cut.
This is only part of a brutal swathe of cuts across the North in response to the Assembly Executive’s demands for ‘efficiency savings’. For example, 12 beds have been removed from cardiovascular surgery at the Royal Victoria, and an acute ward in the Hospital for Sick Children has been closed. The Regional ENT unit at the City Hospital is also under immediate threat.
Much worse is set to come when the Executive cuts £113 million from the health budget in the next financial year. It is not an exaggeration to say that lives are being put at risk, while the Health Trusts stuff millions into the pockets of big business through stealth privatisation schemes.
The Socialist Party has been campaigning on this issue on the ground and we challenge Councillor Tom Hartley, who sits on the Belfast Trust Board, to justify these cuts.
Yours faithfully,
Pat Lawlor.
West Belfast Socialist Party
Seldom before has an idea spread so quickly across the world. Within days tens of millions watched Invisible Children’s “KONY 2012” video as it went viral across the internet and social media. Shocked at the story of killing, rape and child soldiers, demands multiplied that “something must be done” against Joseph Kony and the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) he leads in eastern and central Africa.
Assembly cuts responsible for closure of Unit at the Royal Hospitals
Review of Trotsky, a Biography by Robert Service
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