Keep Horton Hospital services open, say Greens

David Williams, Leader of the Green Group on Oxfordshire County Council, is strongly opposed to the recently announced plans to remove the maternity unit and paediatric care from the Horton Hospital. The moves appear to be part of a plan to close down the A&E service and eventually close the site to build housing.

Cllr. Williams said:

I understand that the Hospital Trust was under severe pressure to centralise the services in the hope of saving money but removal of services and eventual closure is not the answer because health services must not only be of high quality they must also be locally available. The population of the Banbury area is steadily increasing.

David Williams says: “There is plenty of evidence of planned housing for north Oxfordshire which will add to population and to demand for local hospital services.”

David Williams questions the supposed lack of resources for our NHS:

The new Chancellor has yet to make a budget. He has plenty of scope to support our NHS. We have £207 billion to run the Trident nuclear weapons renewal programme, but we do not have enough nurses. We have £26 billion to subsidise the UK’s fossil fuel industries each year, but both the Coalition and the present Government are pursuing further NHS cuts. We have over £9 billion a year to lavish on subsidies to civil aviation, but many NHS Trusts have gone into deficit due to excessively low levels of support from the Government.

There is a protest against the closure of these services outside the hospital on Saturday 30th July, from 7.30pm.

Meet the campaigners and Victoria Prentis and share your concerns, and join in with the (optional!) campaign song for You Tube. The press should be there, so let's make this huge!