OVER six so-called public consultation meetings on the permanent closure of Knutsford’s Tatton Ward, no more than 103 people attended to give their views.
I am in a position to state that figure because I attended every one. I believe that figure counts me six times. I also looked very carefully at the (lack of) publicity by the trust.
Where so blatant an attempt is made to exclude the public, it is hard for anyone to be able to say this has been in any acceptable sense a public consultation.
Yet the closure of Tatton Ward has completely overloaded the other intermediate care wards at Macclesfield and Congleton. In early December, the first event in Knutsford, drew nine people, of whom I had informed seven. The second in Macclesfield, drew five, of whom four had attended the first event.
After Christmas, following CAFCA’s extensive publicity of the events in Knutsford, the third event, at St John’s Church Hall, overfilled the room with people vociferous in their need to reclaim and retain our local NHS services. The fourth event at the AP Club in Holmes Chapel hit a serious problem, in that the entire premises was known by locals, to have closed for good on the previous week. So I sat there for two hours, with several trust officers and no other member of the public.
The fifth event, back in Knutsford’s Community Hospital, was cut back from two hours to one, and was the only event held in the evening.
The hospital’s waiting rooms, corridors and a large room down the corridor, were packed for the whole hour, and longer, by people unmistakably keen to reclaim and retain our local NHS services.
The last event, held in a totally unpublicised way, at Wilmslow Leisure Centre, produced only me for company, yet again.
A couple from Mobberley arrived – just as trust employees were packing up early – to restate the need for local facilities to be retained.
Whatever is seen as the outcome of this peculiar non-public consultation, what is certain is that everyone was saying we need our local facilities to be reclaimed and retained.
CHARLOTTE PETERS ROCK Cheshire Area for Cheshire Action
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