Petition Submitted to Health Scrutiny Comittee

The City Hospital Supporters Group handed over a 1145 signature petition to Councillor Deirdre Alden, Chairman of Birmingham City Council's Health Scrutiny committee on Monday at the Council House in Birmingham. There was coverage in the Birmingham Mail, as well as on Saga radio, Drive Time on Radio WM and a piece on Midlands Today at tea time and in the evening.

The signatures were collected by members of the City Hospital Supporters Group by knocking on doors in the local area, leaving petitions in local community centres and places of worship and an online petition. On our Day of Action, local resident Rageev Hassan told us about how he spent a couple of hours one day knocking on doors trying to get signatures for the petition. One door was opened by an elderly gentleman who knew nothing of the plans. He took the petition, disappeared for a couple of minutes, and came back with seven signatures from his household.

Many thanks to everyone involved for all their efforts. Hopefully this will show the Health Scrutiny Committee the strength of feeling against the proposals. They have already been critical of the plans, and have the power to refer this to the Secretary of State if they believe the proposals are not in the public interest or the consultation has not been carried out properly.

Thanks to the efforts of the members of the City Hospital Supporters Group, the Birmingham Mail (and their big debate), and media coverage on Radio WM, Saga and Midlands Today, I guess it would be difficult to claim the consultation has not been carried out properly. However, as our campaign has highlighted since December last year, the proposals are not in the public interest and there is still work to be done.