Crisis shows new hospital needed

I am not surprised that East Kent Hospitals have some of the highest Covid-19 death rates in the country [‘One in five’, Gazette, July 23].

Since the A&E department in the Kent & Canterbury Hospital closed 15 years ago, the other two hospitals in east Kent have struggled to cope with the increasing number of patients, as anyone who has had to use their A&E services will confirm. Last year, even before the outbreak of the coronavirus, the emergency medical services were directed to take patients from the west of Canterbury to the QEQM in Margate, even though the William Harvey in Ashford is much closer and more convenient! It is a credit to them that they have still been able to maintain a good emergency service, even though they have to travel the extra distance and wait to transfer patients to A&E staff. The outbreak of the Covid-19 virus earlier this year can only have made this worse.

With the population in east Kent continuing to increase it should be clear that major additions to the health services in east Kent are required. The Kent & Canterbury Hospital, which opened in 1937 and is at the centre of the region, is the obvious location for a new purpose-built hospital, a view held by the local housing developer who is prepared to build one along with one of his housing developments. Hopefully the new medical school, based in Canterbury, will still be able to open in September, but their medical students will also require additional hospital facilities to complete their training.

We can only hope these will be in place within the next few years.

Mike Armstrong

Queens Avenue, Canterbury

The oldest part of Kent and Canterbury Hospital opened in 1937