Almost city status but no A&E at our hospital

Norman Jewison, film director, Jonathan Miller, theatre director, Julian Pettifer, TV presenter, Yusuf Islam, activist and former singer Ross Kemp, actor,

Chris Bisson, actor, Josh Hartnett, actor, Paloma Faith, singer, IF Huddersfield was to achieve a city status as mentioned a while back, could that ever be possible with a hospital with does not have an A&E department?

Huddersfield is home to 162,949-plus inhabitants at the 2011 census and that figure is rising all the time. Halifax has 88,134-plus.

We have laid good foundations with great promise.

We have a university, colleges and schools to be proud of.

Outstanding architecture ie Huddersfield Railway station, the new Oastler building (Huddersfield University), historic Castle Hill, beautifully transformed and restored Beaumont Park and Greenhead Park, popular Kingsgate shopping centre improving all the time with great vision for the future.

And many eateries and restaurants.

Yet there is still so much more to achieve and improve on. Shops in the centre of Huddersfield, for example, have either closed down or sit empty.

But do we really want to make improvements to encourage people into this town if there is no hospital? A spider’s web springs to mind!

We are trying to make Huddersfield attractive and entice visitors to the town; the ideas may be there and some may take shape ie HD1 and the new ski slopes.

But have an accident and we are in dire straits, we are in trouble with no hospital.

This is a critical situation and in the future we could be saying “we did have a thriving hospital once but now it lies dead and buried.”

So where does the answer lie? Can HRI be resuscitated?

Well, Huddersfield is a large town with possible city status. As previously stated, it is home to more than 160,000 inhabitants with that figure rising.

I am sure that rather than be without, Huddersfield people would gladly give to keep their hospital alive.

Let’s build hope for the future, not knock it down. I am concerned that with all the talk of refunding university student fees there seems to be little discussion of the possibility of condensing three-year long courses into two years, for example.

As I understand it, at least some of the courses at the University of Huddersfield end in mid-May and re-convene late September.

Not only is this incurring further unnecessary debt for students, it is a huge waste of university premises etc.

Again, as I understand it, students have to pay approximately £105 per week for some purpose built accommodation up to mid-July at least, even though they may have returned to their homes from the aforesaid midMay to late September.

Why are accommodation contracts not timed to come to an end to coincide with course endings?