Petition plea over threat to casualty

May 1 2007 By Alison Dayani, Birmingham Mail

PROTESTERS fighting controversial plans to shake-up a Birmingham A&E have handed over a 2,530-strong petition to hospital bosses.

Residents from across Handsworth, Winson Green and Smethwick have signed the petition saying they do not want health chiefs to scale down City Hospital casualty.

It was handed over yesterday to the office of trust chief executive John Adler for him to consider.

Under proposals, bosses at Sandwell and West Birmingham Trust are looking at no longer carrying out emergency surgery on car crash, stabbing or shooting victims at City A&E.

Although there will be an on-call surgeon for walk-in emergencies, all patients in ambulances will be sent on a 15 minute extra journey to Sandwell A&E, in West Bromwich, instead.

Plans also include merging baby wards across the two hospitals and closing a children's overnight ward at City, replacing it with a 24-hour assessment ward and moving beds to a unit at Sandwell Hospital.

Trust bosses make a final decision whether to go-ahead with the changes at a board meeting on Thursday, May 10.

Peter Jackson, from the Respect party which organised the petition, said: "We hope that it will have some sort of effect on the decision the trust makes next week.

"We talked to people in road after road and found that 98 per cent of residents wanted to sign it.

"We believe the plans are insane. It would be better having doctors and nurses with not enough to do, than having no room for patients because all the beds are full or because medics are too busy."

Mr Jackson said he was moved to launch the petition after the Birmingham Mail's A&E Big Debate highlighted the shake-up. Around 200 concerned people turned up to quiz hospital bosses at the debate in January.

Members of the public are welcome at the trust board meeting in the Wolfson Lecture Theatre, at the Postgraduate Centre, City Hospital, at 2.30pm.