Meeting full to overflowing as West Cumbrians came to support our hospital.

The URC Church in Whitehaven was full to overflowing this evening as hundreds attended the NHS "success regime" public meeting to discuss the future shape of health services in West, North and East Cumbria. Every seat both on the ground floor and upstairs was taken and some people had to stand.

The mood of the meeting was generally polite and constructive, but thunderous applause every time a speaker from the floor - or sometimes the platform - referred to the need to keep services in West Cumbria, particularly at West Cumberland Hospital, left nobody present in any doubt of the enormously strong public support for our hospital and the demand that we have as many services as possible provided here, as locally as possible.

The NHS Trusts' officials assured us that no final decisions have been taken, that they are considering options and listening at this stage, and that a more detailed consultation will take place later this year.

Tonight's good attendance and the clear signal sent by people present was a valuable first step in the battle to persuade the present leadership of the Cumbrian NHS how much we need to keep local services at our hospital. I did have the impression that they were really listening. But we need to keep up the pressure and continue to show support for our local NHS.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

Image
I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more