UKIP’S prospective
Parliamentary candidate for Hartlepool has launched a new Facebook campaign
aimed at “saving” the University Hospital of Hartlepool. The
Holdforth Road hospital site and the University Hospital of North Tees, in
Stockton, are both set to be replaced with the new £300m state-of-the-art
hospital at Wynyard. Officials at the North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust are seeking
£100m of Government money towards the cost of the new site, which still has a
target opening of 2017. But Phillip Broughton, UKIP’s prospective parliamentary
candidate for Hartlepool, has launched a new campaign aimed at saving the site
in town.Mr Broughton said the campaign – which has so far received support from
more than 700 people – has simple aims and the include:
l To keep the Hartlepool
hospital at its current site, in Holdforth Road;
l oppose the proposed
closures of the GP services at Hartfields medical practice, Fens medical
practice and Wynyard Road Primary Care Centre. Mr Broughton said: “I have
launched this campaign because I’m passionate about the National Health
Service.
“I think when we, as a
country, are spending £120bn on the health service the least people should
expect is to have the safety of having a local hospital with all the basic
services. “I’m going to campaign now as the UKIP PPC (Prospective Parliamentary
Candidate) for Hartlepool, and I’ll take the fight to Westminster if I’m elected
as Hartlepool’s MP next year in the general election.” The Hatlepool Mail
recently reported that hospital bosses have decided to close their on-site
nurseries with around 60 workers at risk of the axe – the loss of another
service for the University Hospital of Hartlepool.It follows the decision to
downgrade maternity and children’s services, the closure of the A&E
department and the transfer of emergency medical and critical care to North
Tees.
The campaign also calls for
hospital parking charges to be scrapped and hits out against privatisation.Mr
Broughton added: “We want to scrap the unfair and unnecessary hospital car
parking charges.“The practice of charging patients, visitors and even hospital
staff to park their cars at NHS hospitals is a scandalous rip-off and must be
brought to an end.“We will oppose any
further moves to push the NHS towards privatisation.”To join
the campaign, which has currently had 767 ‘likes’ on Facebook, visit
www.facebook.com/savehartlepoolhospital
.jpeg)