With no apologies for the length of this post:
Ray King in Monday Night's MEN:
"Last week, the long-awaited £7m critical care unit opened at South Manchester's iconic Christie Hospital. Maybe now people may be able to sleep soundly in their beds again knowing that this world-renowned institution is not going to be closed won, or its services broken up. Such fears - all completely unfounded - were bandied about during the General Election campaign. The truth is that there was never any threat to Christie and and the opening of the new unit is proof of that.
Does anyone imagine that one fo the most high-tech facilities in the nworld could have been planned, approved, funded, procured, built, equipped, staffed and opened in a mere 18 months?
"These projects take years to deliver.
" There was indeed a review of cancer services in the north west ordered in 2002, but quite unlike the review of heart transplan provision that, for a time, posed a threat to Wythenshawe Hospital's facility, Christie was never at risk.
"The review was actually seeking ways of expanding Christie's services into local hospitals. Nonetheless, that background proved to be fertile soil in which to plant doubts about the critical care unit. To this, add concerns express by doctors and it all becomes a heady brew. Scarpping of the critical care unit would be the first step towards the closure of Christie! Well it wasn't and it didn't and it won't. The irony is that the late, brace Patsy Calton, the Lib Dem MP for Cheadle, who died within days of retaining her seat was receiving treatment in Christie while (Lib Dem) demonstrators were at the gates.
"The furore surrounding the Christie was a classic example of how the NHS can be used as a political football and it's dangerous stuff."
Neil Goodwin (apolotical) Head of Greater Manchester NHS:
"...there have been despicable rumours that the Christie would close. This is cimplete and utter nonsense and wholly irresponsible. The hospital has been and always will be central to our plans for the future of cancer services."
Someone (Ray King, Neil Goodwin or John Leech) is lying.
So c'mon John...stop taking the p*ss. Time to own up instead of taking us all for eejits.
