The Royal Glamorgan Hospital’s A&E department is at risk of closure as part of proposals unveiled by Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board. Here, Rhondda AM Leanne Wood explains why such a decision would be devastating to patients in the region...
For example, the ratio of consultants is shocking.
While the UK average is 7,000 people to every one consultant, when it should stand closer to 4,000, it is 15,000:1 in our local health board. That is a scandal.
Why would anyone want to go and work in a department that is being run down?
And this has happened because numerous health ministers have put their fingers in their ears and refused to be more innovative when it comes to recruitment.
It is possible to recruit. I understand that Cardiff are recruiting by offering retention bonuses. A recent conversation with an ex-consultant at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital revealed to me that the Royal Glamorgan is an attractive place for consultants to work.
Plaid Cymru is proposing an alternative to these two options – making the Royal Glamorgan Hospital more attractive to consultants looking to build up experience and carry on learning throughout their career.
In our 2014 plan to recruit 1,000 extra doctors to Wales, we proposed making the Royal Glamorgan Hospital a research centre for treating respiratory conditions due to the high levels of conditions in these communities.
Creating a centre of research, an academic institution tailored to the latest innovation in emergency medicine, would be a major positive step we could take to ensure the hospital attracts and retains medical expertise.
This kind of policy would usher in a much-needed environmental change for the A&E department of the Royal Glamorgan Hospital, which has run down in recent years due to this threat of a downgrade.
Since our A&E has been under threat of having services removed for the past six years, it is hardly surprising that many consultants do not wish to work there.
Had the Welsh Government adopted our plans six years ago to train an extra 1,000 doctors, we would not be in such a difficult position right now.
Instead, they scoffed at the plans and chose to centralise services instead.
The current government has been content to allow the Royal Glamorgan Hospital to decline and deteriorate in what seems to be an ideological obsession with having fewer specialist units for the Valleys.
The Health Minister is responsible for the strategic direction of the health service in Wales, and he has the power to intervene here.
This is not just a Rhondda and a Pontypridd issue. It’ll have a knock-on effect to people in Cynon, Merthyr, Bridgend, Cardiff and further afield.
It’s time to intervene.
Give us one last chance to save this service that so many people are seriously worried about losing.
Everyone is welcome to Plaid Cymru’s open meeting in Porth today (Monday, February 3) to air their views and suggest alternative proposals that will safeguard this A&E department.