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johnny mac
Administrator
774 Posts |
 Posted - 17 Jun 2010 : 13:21:43
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Plans to build the new hospital at Wynyard have been scrapped as part of the new Governments review of spending announcements made prior to the General Election. In total, £2b of cuts in projects have been announced.
Readers may remember Mandelson touring the counntry with his cheque book before the election - apparently the cheques would have bounced.
Article:
The Government has scrapped plans to build Hartlepool’s long fan-fared New Hospital at Wynyard. The £450m development is one of several projects to be scrapped as part of £2b of cuts in proposed spending.
Making the announcement in the House of Commons, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander, classed the new hospital as one of many new projects given the go-ahead by the previous Government in the run-up to the General Election for which it simply did not have the money to finance.
The announcement is the penultimate chapter in a long-running saga which has left Hartlepool Hospital devoid of many of the services it offered when the saga began. Many of those services have since been transferred to North Tees Hospital forcing people in Hartlepool to make long journeys for treatments that had previously been available at the Holdsworth Road Hospital. The question now is whether or not those services will be returned to Hartlepool Hospital.
The fight to return these services will be the final chapter of the saga. It is very likely that the North Tees and Hartlepool Trust will now deem Hartlepool Hospital to be ‘non-viable’ as a stand-alone hospital and seek to transfer its remaining services to North Tees. This would allow it to sell the Holdsworth Road site to developers in order to help finance the expansion of North Tees which was the preferred option first proposed by the hospital trust and which triggered the original Darzi report..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/politics/10341015.stm |
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testing times
Frequent Contributor
156 Posts |
Posted - 17 Jun 2010 : 14:17:14
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How painfully predictable.
We have had it all over this hospital issue. Stuart Drummond was once asked what 'Plan B' was if the hospital was not to go ahead. Answer: There was no Plan B.
We are in the hands of utter clowns who were warned to fight any transfer of services until the foundations of this hospital were laid but they have sat idly by, some out of stupidity (Drummond), some out of sub-servience to their party (Brash), while the existing hospital was reduced to the level of an annexe.
What will these people say when the Trust finally announces the closure of Hartlepool Hospital and that everyone will now have to travel to North Tees for everything.
Who speaks for Hartlepool? Not this lot for certain - The whole lot of them should be turfed out. |
Edited by - testing times on 17 Jun 2010 14:40:49 |
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angela
Occasional Contributor
47 Posts |
Posted - 17 Jun 2010 : 18:57:35
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| I've just watched Ian Wright on the local news. The sheer gall of this man is beyond belief. |
Edited by - angela on 17 Jun 2010 22:09:09 |
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Mea Culpa
Occasional Contributor
42 Posts |
Posted - 17 Jun 2010 : 20:12:39
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Angela, you are spot on. But worse than the sheer gall of the man..the arrogance that goes with that no matter what the labour party do in Hartlepool, they will still be voted for!
blair, reid and wright stated we would not lose Hartlepool Hospital...we are in the throes of losing it and when it is gone, people like my mother ('I've always voted labour') people in this town will continue to support what is, in essence, the communist party in drag.
IF they were the 'party of the people' as claimed by so many labour sympathisers, as soon as they gained power in '97 they would have squashed the 1st class travel, the free flights, the flipping of property (and the subsequent loss of revenue to the taxman) and all of the other 'fiddles' that have become apparent, thanks to the Daily Telegraph.
No, they got their noses so deep into the trough all you could see were their ars** sticking up.
If they were truly 'of the people' and not like the reviles Tories, they would have steered clear of the fiddles.
ALL of the government departments, the many quangos, invented by blair and brown over the years plus local government departments have grown morbidly obese over the last 13 years and now we can't pay our way so pruning will have to take place.
However, if they hadn't let in so many immigrants (both legal and non-legal), our various support systems may well have been able to survive. Sadly, they can't survive as is.
No doubt brown will accuse me of being related to the lady in Lancashire!
What is the answer? Well, we have started down the right road;
MPs salaries redued by 5%;
the multitude of quangos are being looked at very closely;
the toothless FSA is being closed down (another nightmare quango invented by brown within 1 month of taking power in '97).
So the whole of the last 13 years is being unraveled and, in time, we will get back on an even course.
Proper, sustainable jobs (not the low paid, 'gets them off the dole figures' rubbish that brown loved so much) will eventually arise from the gloom and despondency, of that I am sure.
(That said, my mother will still vote labour!).
Half a billion pounds for a new hospital when it would all be borrowed money, at God knows what interest rate? That would be like someone on the dole borrowing £10,000 for a face lift...he/she can't afford it so you don't do it.
We don't need a new half a billion hospital..millions has been spent on Hartlepool general over the last 10 years...there is nothing wrong with it.
If labour were 'of the people', they would have listened to 'the people of Hartlepool' and not started to close us down.
The gall of the man indeed. |
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angela
Occasional Contributor
47 Posts |
Posted - 17 Jun 2010 : 22:17:03
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Someone should write a book about this. It would be a great example of how politics actually works in this country. The lies and deceit, the manipulation of information, the electioneering, the duplicity, the spin, the back-tracking, the ineptness, the naiveity .... it's all there. And it's all aimed at self-preservation, re-election and self interest - nothing whatsoever to do with providing appropriate health care for the people.
Drummond 'There is no Plan B'
Brash ' The fight for Hartlepool Hospital is over.'
Wright ' The hospital will not close'
Blair 'The hospital will not close, I'm saying it, John Reid is saying it - I don't know what other higher authority needs to say it.!' |
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not4me
Frequent Contributor
174 Posts |
Posted - 17 Jun 2010 : 22:23:16
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I think the writing was on the wall when the announcement that was due in late December never happened. It was put off until January - nothing happened. It waited until April, just before the election. Remember the photo with Wright wearing his hard hat complete with JCB in the backfground supposedly turning the first sod of turf? - all that was missing was the 'Vote for Me' sign.
Turns out it was all part of a cunning plan to prop up election prospects in dodgy seats - the other part being Lord 'Freeman of the Borough' Mandelson wandering around the UK visiting marginal seats with his cheque book from a bank account that had no money in it.
You're right Angela, someone should write a book for this really is how politics in the UK works. |
Edited by - not4me on 17 Jun 2010 22:25:12 |
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marky
Occasional Contributor
48 Posts |
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not4me
Frequent Contributor
174 Posts |
Posted - 18 Jun 2010 : 13:27:15
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| apparently this hospoital wasn't going to be built under PFI but directly through Department of Health funding and the Hospital Trust had insisted on receiving all of the £464m 'up front'. This seems an odd way of doing things. I would have thought a phased release of funds 'as and when required' would have made more sense. |
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Christine Blakey
Frequent Contributor
1206 Posts |
Posted - 18 Jun 2010 : 16:10:46
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| Maybe presenting demands that were unachievable means that whoever uses it in their campaign can blame the others for 'losing' the hospital. Pass the buck politics! |
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testing times
Frequent Contributor
156 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jun 2010 : 14:02:28
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What a pathetic sight Iain Wright makes.
He now claims that 'the money was there'. However, reading the various write ups on this issue in the national press it turns out that the money of which Wight speaks came from two sources. - Hoped for 'underspends' in Government Departments which were highly unlikely to materialise in the present economic climate.
- A raid on Government contingency reserves normally used for military purposes like funding the purchase of additional helicopters for our troops in Afganistan
In short, the Department of Health had never actually allocated funding from its own budget to build this hospital; it had grovelled around trying to collect together enough money to avoid having to announce that it couldn't afford it and therefore putting Iain Wright's seat at risk.
He is probably relieved that Labour lost the election leaving the Tories in the position of having to break the bad news. |
Edited by - testing times on 19 Jun 2010 14:05:57 |
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not4me
Frequent Contributor
174 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jun 2010 : 15:45:50
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If the present hospital closes, Hartlepool will become the only major town in the north east not to have its own hospital.
Durham, Stockton, Middlesbrough, Sunderland, Northallerton - even Bishop Auckland - but not Hartlepool.
You ask 'who speaks for us?' No one. |
Edited by - not4me on 19 Jun 2010 15:46:21 |
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Mate_of_Wilf
Frequent Contributor
400 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jun 2010 : 17:47:53
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quote:
Originally posted by not4me
You ask 'who speaks for us?' No one.
Actually most of use have 3 Councillors, a mayor, an MP and 3 MEPs. If you live on the Headland or in Greatham, Hart, Elwich, Newton Bewley or Dalton Piercy then you have parish councillors as well. That means someone from the Headland has up to 21 elected representatives speaking for them? Plus of course Hartlepool Council recognises "Resident Representatives" (who are usually wan-a-be or former councillors), plus the Hartlepool Partnership with it's 40 members (OK some duplication here as Drummond is acting chair and it includes the MP).
So I don't think there is any shortage of people to speak for us. Unfortunately they don't seem to be saying what we want them to! |
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snowy
Frequent Contributor
161 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jun 2010 : 22:38:46
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| Probably because they haven't been told what to say. So much representation, so little democracy. |
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Mate_of_Wilf
Frequent Contributor
400 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jun 2010 : 23:03:25
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Borough Councillors, the Mayor, MP and MEPs are supposedly elected by the people on some sort of platform or manifesto and hence they tell the people what they are going to say if they are elcted, it's no use complaining after the event if you don't like what they say because they were democratically elected. The people of Hartlepool have repeatedly demonstrated they want the Labour Party to represent them. This unfortunately means that when Labour are in power the town is neglected because why do anything for a town that is stupid enough to believe every lie they are told. Was anyone really surprsied when Hartlepool Hospital was axed? The next announcement will be an upgrading of Stockton Hospital to take up the slack. If you want to know why then look at the last general election, Where did the Tories take a seat from Labour in the North East? Where will saving their hospital mean they might even hang onto it next time?
Parish Councillors are also supposed to be elected but in most cases anyone who wants the job can be a Parish Councillor just by turning up to the meetings and the same usually goes for "Residents Representatives" which means, in my opinion, Parish Councillors and Residents Representatives have dubious democratic legitimacy, but not as dubious as "Hartlepool Partnership" and the numerous quangos and trust boards who are universally composed of the family and friends of the "great and the good" who all appoint each other in a totally incestuous and completely undemocratic way.
Hartlepool will go nowhere under Labour apart from down. |
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jojo
Frequent Contributor
441 Posts |
Posted - 20 Jun 2010 : 10:05:08
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Mate_of_Wilf
quote:
Hartlepool will go nowhere under Labour apart from down.
Surely Hartlepool cannot go any lower can it ?
Thinking about that question I submit that the answer must be YES.
Why do I think that ?
Because the people have consistently elected, and apparently are content to continue to elect Councillors whose loyalties lie with their Party, together with a Mayor who's only loyalty is to his own ego.
In the mean time those so called "professionals" actually running the town thrive on such stupidity and feather their own nests.
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Christine Blakey
Frequent Contributor
1206 Posts |
Posted - 20 Jun 2010 : 19:41:48
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Things could change if local people had the information they need to realise that what they are voting for is not working.
The issue with the hospital is a good example. Listen to the outcry locally blaming it all on the new government. Quite frankly the newspaper article says it all. They are stressing that they are going to find private money.
Well if they can surely the government have done the right thing to cancel this as we have a massive debt and need to sort it, rather than throwing good money after bad.
It would be nice to get a lovely new hospital but not at the expense of the country get out of the mess we are in. I can't help wondering why they don't reflect on their actions over the past few years. Whilst in power, a political party took his down.
So easy to blame others but harder to sort this mess out. All hands on deck I think? |
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Wynyard/Hartlepool Hospital Issue
