Defend health provision in Dundee
Around 60 local residents in Ardler in Dundee attended a public meeting in the local community centre on Tuesday (06/09/11). The local GP Practice was closed following the retiral of the GP there a few weeks ago. Since then 1,700 local residents had been left without a service and NHS Tayside have been slow to address a number of concerns. There was no consultation with the local community.
The mood at the meeting was clearly anger at NHS Tayside board. Disgracefully, despite being invited to attend along with local councillors they failed to turn up to answer questions. The closure of the practice is clearly tied in with the massive public spending agenda of both the ConDem coalition at Westminster and the SNP government at Holyrood.
Along with a number of other people who attended the Ardler public meeting I decided to go to the NHS Tayside Annual Review meeting in the plush surroundings of Discovery Point at lunchtime on 8th September. Unbelievably, we heard from the NHS Tayside Board in their introduction that they had just been to a public meeting in Blairgowrie to discuss what was happening there to NHS services there. They quite rightly attend a public meeting in Blairgowrie to engage with that community so what was stopping someone from NHS Tayside attending the public meeting in Ardler? There were more people at the public meeting in Ardler than was at their own Annual Review meeting as well.
In their Annual Review given out at Discovery Point, NHS Tayside highlight the need to “offer support to our communities, building equal relationships between professionals and people using services, increasing capacity and skills so they can contribute to the delivery of shared solutions to local need.” They clearly have a long way to go in persuading the people of Ardler that this what they are doing with the closure of the GP practice and the failure so far to deliver much needed medical services in an area of multiple deprivation.
The further statements given by board members that the majority of the 1,700 people left without a GP have now signed up to other practices should not be seen as local residents agreeing or even accepting of the loss of their GP Practice. It only shows that people need a service urgently and couldn’t wait around until the NHS Board came forward with some unspecified type of service in the future.
An action group has now been set up to fight for the reinstatement of services to the area. Socialist Party members in the area will give their support in building a mass campaign to fight for improved medical services and against all cuts.
