With the ongoing deterioration in funding for non-profit making hospital services like 'Burns Services' in the Westcountry, people with serious burns must now travel all the way to Bristol to get life saving treatment.This means that a child that burns itself in Penzance must travel 190miles, a journey of at least 3 hours 30 minutes on a good day.
What do I mean by 'non-profit making services'? Well, the NHS is now a market. Procedures that make a profit for the hospitals include cataracts and small lump removals - they can be done quickly and the patients don't take up a bed. A burn patient might lie around for days, costing a fortune in nursing staff time and drug prescriptions, ignoring the basic daily cost of occupying a bed.
Is it any coincidence that, as profitable services like hip and knee replacements have surged ahead at the independent treatment centres that are popping up like mushrooms around our big hospitals, less profitable services have been downgraded and vandalised by the government bean counters.
Westcountry people deserve better than this.
