Hospitals to go—chairman

Press, 7 September 1989, Page 3

Hospitals to go—chairman

By

DEBORAH MCPHERSON

The Canterbury Area Health Board will not change its mind about closing Coronation and Jubilee hospitals for the elderly, says its chairman, Mr Tom Grigg. Mr Grigg said yesterday the board would not change its mind in spite of the opposition to the closings from 160 people who gathered at two public protest meetings on Tuesday. A decision to cut spending had been forced on the board by the Government, he said.

The board could not justify keeping the two deteriorating buildings

open when there were empty beds within its institutions and private

geriatric hospitals. The board’s acting associate general manager for patient care, Dr Ross Fairgray, also dismissed speculation that plans for shifting the patients had already been approved. “No decisions have been made,”he said. “We are looking at a variety of options.” The organiser of the public meetings, Mr Les Burgess, said earlier that the elderly should not be used as pawns in a financial game. Mr Grigg said the board would

stick to its planned timetable of closing the hospitals in six months

in spite of comments by one of its chairmen of geriatric services, Dr Richard Sainsbury, that six months was not enough time to successfully move patients and staff. • Dr Sainsbury said on Tuesday that he was concerned about the impact of the move on the patients, staff and other health services. He said he could not discount the possibility that some patients could die because of the stress and trauma of shifting from a home they considered their last resting place. It was incorrectly stated in “The Press” yesterday that Dr Sainsbury had made the comments at one of the public meetings.