District General Hospitals
Yesterday I had a question to the Health Minister on the important consultation on hospital reconfiguration in Mid and West Wales, and specifically affecting Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion.
There has been consultation on the two options contained in the ‘Designed to Deliver’ document about hospital changes in South West and West Wales, and only two options were actually set out in the document. Neither one of the options allows for retaining the existing District General Hospitals with their present level of services. This worried me greatly and certainly the point was made in my response on the consultation in opposing the proposals and seeking assurance that the status quo would remain and that Withybush, Bronglais and Glangwilli would all remain as thriving district general hospitals along with Prince Phillip in Llanelli.
Not only did the Minister fail to make clear that he felt that Withybush had a viable future, but Christine Gwyther also popped up to make the point, as she has done before, that I didn’t attend any of the consultation meetings. What Christine failed to say was that I did make a submission in the consultation exercise and, indeed, held my own public meeting to which members of the public were invited, and many, many attended to express their opposition to these proposals. My constituency surgeries in Haverfordwest and Tenby have been dominated by the issue of the threatened changes and correspondence has come in thick and fast opposing the changes.
It is clearly going to be an important issue in the Welsh Assembly elections, and the Labour Party surely needs to come clean as to what it is proposing with regard to Withybush and, indeed, the other DGH’s in the area.
