Campaigners who want a full Accident and Emergency department at Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr have called on Caerphilly County Borough Council to hold a referendum on the issue.
Campaign Secretary, Lisa Jones said: “We are calling on Caerphilly Council to hold a referendum on a doctor-led 24-hour A&E for the new Ystrad Fawr hospital.
“We want to put democracy back into decision making for the NHS. For too long, highly paid managers have been making decisions with far too little accountability.
“The campaign is organising a march in Caerphilly this Saturday. We’re assembling at 11.30am opposite what was Caerphilly Miners’ Hospital to march through the town. Most of the shops have put up posters for the march. The support we have had has been really wonderful.
“We need our A&E back. This area just isn’t safe without it. I live on the doorstep of the new hospital, but when my little boy was critically ill, he had to be taken by ambulance all the way to Merthyr. A few seconds longer and he might not be here now.
“My own experiences have made me realise just how important the NHS is to all our lives. I’m not just fighting for myself and my own family. Thousands have signed the petition for the same reasons. We’re fighting to defend the NHS.
“We’ve lost a whole layer of the NHS from Caerphilly and we’re not prepared to put up with it. We have a Minor Injuries Unit, instead of an A&E – with no doctors. People are better off going to their GP during office hours.
“We don’t even have a resuscitation unit. Lives will be lost if we don’t get these services back.
“What people need to understand is that this is all about money – NHS cuts branded as a ‘reorganisation’. The South Wales Programme for the NHS would leave us with only four to five A&Es from Llanelli to Chepstow.
“There was an ‘Engagement Period’ before Christmas. It included no public meetings – despite all our requests – just poorly advertised drop in sessions at awkward times.
“The Public Consultation Process was meant to start straight after Christmas, but because of the outcry, it’s been put back to some indefinite time in the spring.
“We hope that the turnout on Saturday will be tremendous, because nothing could be more important than having a doctor-led 24 hour A&E locally.”
The £172m Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr, which opened in November 2011, currently has a local emergency centre for minor injuries.
The campaign is also selling t-shirts, for people to show their support, which can be ordered at £6.95 each by contacting Mariam Kamish on 07772520192.
The campaign currently has more than 1,700 members on its Facebook Group and more than 1,000 names on an online petition.
A referendum is a fine idea, unfortunately this will not happen. As with membership of the EU the politicians know that the people would give the "wrong" answer to a referendum question.
I believe very strongly that we need a local accident and Emergency hospital. The miners recognised this which was why they started their own hospitals at Caerffili and elswhere. The new South Wales plan is going to cost life and limb. In cases of strokes, heart attacks, poisoning, road accident, etc it is prompt treatment rather than technology that is vital.
I will be marching shoulder to shoulder with the people of the borough on Saturday. It will be interesting to see which politicians are there to lend support to this campaign.
A referendum sounds a good idea, but a referendum has to be called by the Government in power or it waolud be worthless, a referendum is a ruling party accepting it cant handle the problems. Even if one was held in this case, it would have no effect, the closure of the Miners and the opening of the cottage hospital at Ystrad is a done deal, done dusted. If people want to vote on the issue,in the next Local, Assembly and General Elections vote against the Labour Party because they are to blame, they are the people who stole our A and E unit.
We have representative democracy, referenda are not binding, merely informative. Local referenda doesn't involve Government, not sure of the costs though and I tend to agree on the 'done deal' aspect of it.
Ystrad hospital was done on the cheap from the ground up. With an ageing population, high obesity and social deprivation, people will suffer. As ever the valleys are invisible thoroughfares to the extremities at either end.
Ron is not entirely correct in relation to his comment that ` A referendum
has to be called by the Government in Power`
A local referendum can be called for by any group in the Community, once such a formal request is made to a local Community Council, or Town Council, the matter has to be considered by Local elected Councillors at a meeting which it HAS to call for the purpose of hearing such a petition.
Any Community or town Council can vote, upon such a submission by any group of citizens, to request their local County Council, in this case, Caerphilly county borough council, hold a referendum on any issue of concern to the local citizens, in this case local Accident and Emergency Facilities.
Perhaps this is what this group who are headlining the current lack of provision intend to do, it is a simple process which puts ALL local politicians views on the matter clearly in the public domain.
Why ask the council to hold a referendum on a health issue? Would you ask the Health Board to hold a referendum on refuse collection?
The Miners hospital had a 9 to 5 provision which was not providing much more than minor injuries – at least YYF is open 24/7.
As to who is to blame, which party was in power locally during the development of YYF? – but it would have made no difference so let's have a proper discussion rather than waste more time on Plaid/Labour name calling – that's what really annoys people!
cjhtaffs comment that the health authority should be asked to hold a referendum is not possible.
The fact is that it is the local authority who have the lead role in holding a referendum on local issues, or not, and, even if they do hold such a referendum they are not bound be the outcome, but, I suppose they ignore it at some political risk in the ballot box.
Most health boards contain Local Elected Councillors so it is at their personal peril that they ignore the result if demands that A & E facilities be provided at the will of the local citizens via a referendum, that is what all political parties continuously bat on about when they talk about "empowering local citizens", the reality, however, I suspect, would be very different should such a referendum go against the Health Authority Policy of NOT providing such local facilities.
Am I getting a bit confused here,I thought the closure of the Miners and the construction of the cottage hospital in Ystrad, was the responsibility of the NHS, through the Aneurin Bevan Health Board, though the Labour Party may have pulled the strings. So having even a local referendum, would have no effect on the authorities responsible for the disater that is Ystrad. We just have to accept that we were robbed of a hospital, and it would now be too costly to build an A and E unit at Ystrad, since it must have been built on the cheap in the first place.
If I can correct the comment that the Miners Hospital provided nine to five treatment only, this refers only to the situation after run down began. At one time the Miners had 24 hour accident and emergency, which was called casualty. I know because I was taken there with a serious injury and treated there as an 'in patient' over several days.
Even of the Miners had been a cottage hospital, which is was most certainly not, this is what we have been given in the 21st century. I am convinced that minds are already made up to provide only five accident and emergency units in the whole of S. Wales. This, often heard, talk that the Miners was never a proper hospital is part of the softening up process to make us accept this without making a fuss.
To put the record straight, I never said the Miners was a cottage hospital, it was a good hospital with an A and E unit. I find it difficult to understand why it was closed and why during the planning for the cottage hospital at Ystrad, none of the politicians had the nous and or the guts to realise it would not have an A and E unit, its incompetence, or connivance in downgrading the hospital services in the Rhymney and robbing Caerphilly of a hospital. It would be difficult to provide an A and E unit, a more beneficial answer would be for Cardiff and the Vale to take over the Caerphilly basin, so oue A and E would be in the Heath, not the Royal Gwent or Prince Charles.