Fear for patients as hospital unit closes for tests (From Northwich Guardian)

Victoria Infirmary Northwich closes inpatient unit for tests

8:40am Monday 3rd May 2010 in News

PATIENTS are being moved out of the inpatients unit at Northwich’s infirmary today, Wednesday.

The patients are being moved to a dedicated ward at Leighton Hospital while electrical tests are being carried out at the unit, which is more than 100 years old.

But campaigners fear that the unit will not pass its inspection and will never reopen.

Liam Byrne, spokesman for Save Our Northwich Inpatients Campaign (SONIC), said: “Dependent on the test results, it is possible that the wards will be closed down without any planned date for when they will be reopened or replaced.

“If this happens, it will be a tragedy for the town because it would be the loss of a much loved facility which has served the community well over many generations.

“It should also make local people very angry because, once again, Northwich is being treated shamefully.”

SONIC was set up four years ago when the inpatients unit at Victoria Infirmary Northwich (VIN) was threatened with closure.

After the group’s campaign, Central and Eastern Cheshire Primary Care Trust (CECPCT) pledged that the beds would be reprovided in the town.

Plans were in the pipeline to build a super surgery at VIN, which was set to include a new and improved beds unit as well as three of the town’s surgeries, but the recession has taken its toll and PCT bosses have admitted they cannot afford to carry out the project.

Mr Byrne said: “Had the PCT got on with the job it promised to do at the time, we would have had a new beds unit, as part of a community hospital, open and operating by now.”

He added: “We are back at square one, considering options and alternatives, and are at least two more years away from the facility we were promised.

“That is, of course, if we ever get it.

“Cynics would say that the NHS senior people who were visibly desperate to close the beds unit four years ago have at last got their way.

“Meanwhile, the people who will suffer are present and future patients, many old and infirm, who will be hospitalised miles away from their homes and their families forced to travel miles to visit them.

“That is just not acceptable for anything but a temporary period.”