Medical Director Misleading Everyone?

When Dr Hugh Bradby was being interviewed on The Politics Show on Sunday 3rd June I believe that he misled the viewers. The piece opened with a brief interview with a gunshot victim that had been successfully treated at City Hospital. The patient made the point that City Hospital had saved his life. It moved on to a view of the A&E Department at City as the commentator said the management wanted to move the main Emergency Surgery Service to Sandwell Hospital while establishing a 24 Hour Surgical Assessment Unit and management maintain that this is an improvement. They then cut to Dr. Bradby being interviewed at Sandwell. He said "I would want treating where the best facilities were and all the evidence shows that you are far better off travelling further away to the best resourced department than you are to a local department that perhaps does not provide you with as good a service."

This is an outrageously misleading statement. What better resourced department is he talking about? Is he talking about the A&E Department at Sandwell? He cannot be because the patients referred to would be sorted out in City Hospital's A&E Department and the 24Hour Surgical Assessment Unit. If the plans go through they would then move to a ward bed at Sandwell if they needed longer than 24 hours in hospital. Currently patients are admitted to a bed at City. Is he telling us that Sandwell Hospital has better wards, more and better nurses, more and better doctors, less infection on the wards than City Hospital? If he is where is the evidence?

In fact patients moved to Sandwell Hospital will receive similar care to that delivered at City but they will have suffered the risks and inconvenience of an additional ambulance journey with all the attendant problems for their relatives. This extra journey would be occurring because the Trust has decided to make changes to emergency services that are not in the best interests of patients. This will not be better care but worse care that is why City Hospital Supporters are so opposed to it.