With reference to the letter in the Wimbledon Guardian (Do not let NHS's bad cold turn into pneumonia, January 8) by Councillor Jeff Hanna and Councillor Andrew Judge, I feel that instead of collectively finding a solution for inequalities of the East and West of the borough they are playing politics with Merton residents’ lives. During the last election false allegations were made suggesting St Helier Hospital will be closing. One year on and the hospital is still open and running efficiently. This hospital was never going to be closed.

When Labour were in power for 12/13 years they re-negotiated the GP contracts. They are the architects of the GP mess. We have seen terrible results at the Mid Staffordshire hospital and the Labour run NHS in Wales. These happened when the current Shadow Health Secretary was the Health Minister.

The moral judgement is that this Labour run council will create unnecessary public alarm about healthcare. They falsely argue that the coalition government is to blame. At present 42 per cent of the A&E visits are totally unnecessary. We will be have a new excellent community hospital at Nelson Hospital opening in April 2015, followed in 2017 with a similar one in Mitcham. Councillors needs to get out of their chairs and advise Merton residents to look after their health and seek advice from late night pharmacies for minor health problems rather that rushing to A&E.

Councillors should take part in their local GP surgery patient participation groups and lobby their respective GPs to work more efficiently for their patients then we would not have these problems continually.

Logie Lohendran

via email

 


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