Socialist Party Wales Socialism In Wales
Bosses at Cwm Taf health board have announced the closure of the A&E department at Royal Glamorgan hospital even as an A&E crisis is raging in the NHS.
Emergency cases in Rhondda Cynon Taff (RCT) face being transported on a long journey to Merthyr or Cardiff by an already overstretched ambulance service. People in the Rhondda face especially long journeys.
Waiting times at Welsh A&Es are at an all time high and for the first time this is not just a winter crisis. All the under-resourced A&E departments are struggling to cope all year round.
The Cwm Taf bosses claim that the closure of the Royal Glamorgan A&E has been caused by the impending retirement of the sole A&E consultant at the hospital.
But the truth is this cut has been long planned by the health bosses. The closure of the A&E at Royal Glamorgan was first threatened in 2013 in the South Wales Programme of cuts presented by the then health minister Mark Drakeford (now Welsh First Minister) and authored by Professor Marcus Longley, the current chair of the Cwm taf Health Board. The programme planned to reduce the number of A&Es in South Wales to just five.
There was a very strong reaction against the programme and a series of marches in RCT and, while other cuts were carried through, the closure of the A&E was put on the back-burner. Cwm Taf health board had seven years to find new consultants for the A&E but did nothing. Instead it has ran down the service until this week they announced its impending closure.
They claim that the closure has nothing to do with the cuts. They claim that A&E closures have been forced on the NHS because there are not enough A&E specialist consultants available. But Welsh Labour has been in charge of the Welsh NHS for over 20 years. They have had ample time to train new doctors and other health professionals.
The shortage of A&E doctors is clearly because of the failure of Welsh governments to address the chronic shortage by training more. It is hardly the case that there is a shortage of young people who wish to be trained as doctors. And the cuts to the Welsh health budget instigated by the Tories and implemented by Welsh Labour are the biggest reason for the shortage.
But working people in RCT will not take these cuts lying down. The fight goes on.
