12th June 2011

West Lothian citizens simply do not matter. You now know of the Board’s plans to move all patients with chest pain directly from A&E at St John’s to the Royal Infirmary. This is being done to try and destroy the cardiology service at St John’s. It comes at the end of several years of neglect in cardiology. First the Health Board refused to replace the cardiologist, Dr Irving, leaving just one consultant, Dr Jacob. Then they removed the cardiology junior doctor. In April they cut the cardiology nurses and now they want to take all the patients straight to the RIE! This is how the Board works. They reduce the service at St John’s and then they say that it is vital for patient safety to move everyone to Edinburgh hospitals!

The Board did this with surgery and trauma orthopaedics. They cut the service and then forced West Lothian patients to travel to Edinburgh without any public consultation. This is exactly what is happening with cardiology.

Were YOU consulted about this change? Did you even know about it until you read it in the newspapers?

The laboratories at St John’s are being slowly stripped of key staff. As people retire they are not being replaced. The Board will soon say that “the service is not safe” and that the work should be done in Edinburgh.

If you work in the laboratories at St John’s you will know what we mean.

As all these services are gradually run down at St John’s and then moved to Edinburgh it becomes impossible for the rest of the hospital to survive. Even simple things like being assessed for a hip replacement now has to be done at the RIE.

This Health Board has targeted West Lothian people because they believe that we are too stupid or too weak to protest. They are running down St John’s because they have overspent their budget on the huge black hole which is the PFI RIE. Until now, the Board has paid its bills by selling off assets. Over £100 million so far. These are OUR assets. What did we get in return? A downgraded St John’s with the consolation prize of a daytime short-stay surgical unit which shuts at night. This is useless if you have a surgical emergency or if your gran falls and breaks her hip at home. For these people it is a long, painful journey to the RIE where they will wait in trollies for hours (the RIE usually fails to achieve its four hour target for admissions) and then be sent to a ward to catch MRSA.

If you do go to the RIE a leaked internal report shows that your vital signs won’t be checked at night! You are simply forgotten about.

The scandal of neglect that is emerging from even “good” hospitals such as the Sick Kids (see the Evening News on June 7th) is a reflection of the way that NHS Lothian Board is mismanaging the service across Lothian. As the Board is no longer allowed to sell assets they are cutting services everywhere. Wards are constantly short staffed and they are dangerous! Staff sick leave is high because morale is at rock bottom. Meanwhile, the senior managers pay themselves well over £100000 a year!

We always said that as West Lothian grew it would need more resources. We are growing faster than anywhere else in Scotland. The increase in population is mainly amongst the old and the children – the very people that need hospital services. Yet the Board has been cutting services at St John’s for years!

The children’s department (paediatrics) at St John’s is on its knees. Soon the Health Board will be telling you that “the service is too small to be viable.” It will be branded as “unsafe” and then all our children will have to travel to the Sick Kids in Edinburgh. Remember, you heard it from the SDC first!

What about the MRI body scanner? Every major hospital in Scotland has one. These are vital to deliver good medical care. Edinburgh hospitals have several. St John’s has none. We have been promised a scanner. But the head of St John’s, Mrs Mair, has now said that we won’t get one till “at least 2015!” So who are you kidding, Mrs Mair? This statement really means that St John’s will never get an MRI scanner and then the Board will say that even more patients have to travel to Edinburgh to get “the best possible care.”

We ask this Board, "why not invest in St John’s?” Where is our share of the £100 million of our assets that was sold? Why are people in West Lothian disadvantaged at every turn? Do we matter less than people living in Edinburgh?

If you have a urology problem with your kidneys or bladder, don’t expect to get a full service any more at St John’s. The Health Board is downgrading this so that it can build up the service at the Western General in Edinburgh.

Most of the time you won’t be told about the downgrade of St Johns. You weren’t told about surgery, or trauma orthopaedics, or pathology, or the mortuary, or the laboratories, or cardiology, or urology, or…….The Health Board are masters of spin. Their senior officials can contradict themselves or mislead the public and there is no-one to question them. No matter which government is in power the aim seems to be to shelter the administrators and let the people suffer.

Over the next few months you will see things in the Press about St Johns and about the disastrous way the Board is attempting to run healthcare in a divisive and discriminatory manner. We get so much information from you, our supporters, and from NHS staff who, in complete confidence, can let everyone know what is REALLY happening.

We don’t intend to sit quiet and let a monstrous injustice continue. We will maintain close links with media so that you are allowed to see behind the mask that NHS Lothian presents both to the public and the politicians.

St John’s is our hospital and we won’t allow it to be starved of resources, deprived of vital services and progressively downgraded so that the Board is given excuses for reasons of “safety” or “good clinical practice” to move more and more patients to Edinburgh hospitals.

You deserve to know the truth. You need to have the facts that we cannot put into print. So join us at o ur next public meeting to be held in July. We will post the date on our website at www.stopthedowngrade.org in the local newspapers and email to all those who’ve registered with us. If you haven’t already given us your email, please let us have it in confidence through the website or by emailing comments@stopthedowngrade.org

THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT-WE CAN’T DO IT WITHOUT YOU!

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO TAKE A MORE ACTIVE ROLE IN SUPPORTING THE CAMPAIGN DEDICATED TO PROTECTING ST. JOHN’S HOSPITAL AT HOWDEN PLEASE GET IN TOUCH.

The SDC Team.

St. John's, the heartbeat of West Lothian