Protesters voice fears for health services
CAMPAIGNERS were outside Stepping Hill to protest against the huge cuts being made and raise concerns about the effect on the borough’s health.
Stockport NHS Watch are angry at news of 350 jobs being shed and the closure of ward B3 in a bid to clear a £40m budget deficit.
While they said that they ‘admire’ the hospital itself the cuts will mean residents will struggle to access services and put Stepping Hill under huge pressure.
The group protested on Monday morning and plan to be outside the hospital to do the same thing for the next three Mondays.
Raymond Tallis, a retired professor of medicine at Manchester University, said: “We admire the hospital enormously, it is a great hospital.
“The protest is about a cut in services that is not driven by a reduction in need or demand but by the deficit Stepping Hill has accumulated because of Tory cuts.
“There will be two effects. One is it will be more difficult for patients to get the care they need and two is the other wards, already under huge pressure, will be more stretched.
“The things we will see are increased waiting times for operations, more difficulty accessing GPs and increased pressure on A&E. Stepping Hill is being badly treated.
“It reflects the pressure on all the NHS, it has to manage a decline in resources.”
A public meeting about the issue has been provisionally scheduled for September 29 at Stockport Art Gallery from 7.30pm.
A spokesman for the hospital said: “In common with many other NHS trusts, we are facing severe financial challenges.
“These difficult decisions have not been taken lightly, but it is essential that we proactively manage our financial situation and ensure long term sustainability.
“We are not sacking staff. From August we will be inviting staff to take voluntary redundancies in order to help us meet our financial challenges.
“In the case of each voluntary redundancy, a rigorous assessment will be made to ensure that the loss of the post in question would not have a negative impact on patient safety, and would still allow us to provide good quality services.
“With bed and ward closures we are ensuring that patients will receive the highest quality of care in appropriate wards elsewhere in the hospital.”