Protest to be held at proposal to close psychiatric ward

Protesters are to picket a Perth psychiatric facility to object to the closure of an inpatient ward.

NHS Tayside is holding a consultation on a proposal to close the Moredun ward at Murray Royal Hospital, which treats acute adult psychiatric inpatients, and move operations to Carseview in Dundee.

The protesters will include people who use mental health services, carers, service providers and the general public.

Susan Scott, manager of local mental health charity Plus Perth, which is organising the demonstration, said: “We believe that contributing to the NHS Tayside consultation will actually achieve the opposite of what you might expect – it will help the proposal happen.

“There has already been very strong opposition to it from service users and their families during an option appraisal and scoring of several options.

“Their voices had no impact then, so why would they expect it to be any different this time?

“We know that the medical workforce is shrinking. The transformation team who proposed the centralisation of the acute beds have themselves admitted this in reports, and cite it as the main reason for such a drastic change of service.

“They may just about manage to staff a bigger centralised unit in Dundee now, but what is going to happen in three, five, or 10 years’ time when they cannot recruit the staff?”

She said Plus had no confidence in the NHS Tayside consultation process so had been gathering its own evidence and feedback regards the proposal via a questionnaire and online survey.

“Feedback we have gathered so far tells us that one of the main concerns about this proposal is that people will get less or no visitors due to the travelling time, especially from remoter parts of Perth and Kinross.

“Getting people to hospital when they are ill has also been reported as a major hurdle to face,” she added.

The Plus survey can be found at surveymonkey.co.uk/r/J5RD6P5.

The demonstration takes place on Tuesday at 1pm.