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Casualty unit to close for good?

From the Swindon Advertiser, first published Friday 11th Jan 2002.

HEALTH chiefs will be quizzed about the night-time closure of Melksham Hospital's casualty unit at a meeting on Monday, January 7.

Director of the West Wiltshire Primary Care Trust, Hilary Fairfield has been invited to a Melksham town council meeting ­ in the town hall at 7pm ­ to answer questions about the unit's closure.

Doctors from Giffords and Spa Road surgeries will also be attending.

Many residents fear the temporary closure of the unit from 11pm to 7am will become permanent, with health chiefs checking on the public's response by `back-door' methods.

Mayor Vic Oakman said: "I think the public will turn up at the meeting to air their views. It is not a public meeting, though.

"We just want some answers. I know we are not on the mailing list, so to speak, but we talk to the public and it would have been nice to know about the temporary closure.

"Some reports say it will reopen at the start of February but a letter from the trust said mid-February.

"Even if it just saves one person's life being open then it has done its job. We do not want to see it shut."

The unit was closed in December when a staff member went on sick-leave and no replacement could be found.

Richard Porter, 23, of Bowerhill, who went to the unit on Thursday night with a broken finger, said he only just managed to see a nurse.

He said: "If I was any later, I would have had to go all the way to Bath ­ I was in pain."

Nick Westbrook of the Community Health Council said: "We are calling the trust to account for the change of service. Whilst recognising the short term difficulty that prompted the action we will be seeking evidence of long term solutions to ensure that a highly valued and very effective casualty unit handles these demands, not just at Melksham but in all other community hospitals across West Wiltshire."

Director of services at West Wiltshire Primary Care Trust, Hilary Fairfield said: "We are reviewing the situation on a daily basis and we are looking to reopen it."

Meanwhile, the casualty unit at Bath's RUH has been criticised for leaving 60 patients waiting on trolleys for more than four hours between December 30 and January 1.

An RUH spokesman said: "The trust regrets that some patients have had to wait on trolleys for lengthy periods but it stresses that during this time these patients received a high standard of clinical care."

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