Election Candidates Show Support for Ealing Hospital
Both Labour and Conservatives pledge to protect A&E services
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Dr. Onkhar Sahota and Richard Barnes, the Labour and Conservative candidates in next week's London Assembly elections have both given their backing to the campaign to keep accident and emergency services at Ealing Hospital.
Dr Onkar Sahota has launched petitions to save Ealing Hospital and Central Middlesex Hospital. He is pictured below with Labour party colleagues demonstrating outside the hospital.
Dr Sahota said, “It is crucial that people across Ealing have access to high quality medical facilities and these cuts and closures will mean patients having to travel longer distances for A&E care. After David Cameron had the audacity to stand outside Ealing Hospital after the election and claim he would not be cutting the NHS, this is not something we can sit back and allow to happen. My experience has been that if we give our NHS staff the right facilities, they provide a world class service. I urge local residents to sign up to the petition and ensure that we fight these front line cuts to services at our hospitals.”
Deputy Mayor of London and sitting Assembly Member for Ealing and Hillingdon, Richard Barnes, was contacted by Colin Standfield, Chair of the Ealing SOS, earlier this week. Richard responded to the correspondence stating,
“Ealing Hospital’s A&E department provides care for 100,000 patients a year and the merger talks between the three hospitals involved need to remember that. Where do these people go if the A&E in Ealing closes? The answer is that they want to use Ealing Hospital, and so they should.”
His support follows Ken Livingstone's visit to the hospital alongside Onkar Sahota, earlier in the week - Ealing A+E is threatened with closure under new proposals and is becoming a focal point in the forthcoming London elections.
Four out of nine accident and emergency wards in north-west London will close under NHS reorganisation plans.
Under current proposals - which are still being finalised - either Ealing or West Middlesex or will lose its accident and emergency ward.
Candidates for London Mayoral Election May 3rd
Siobhan Benita, Independent
Carlos Cortiglia British National Party
Boris Johnson Conservative
Jenny Jones, Green
Ken Livingstone, Labour
Brian Paddick, Liberal Democrat
Lawrence Webb, Fresh Choice for London (UKIP)
27th April 2012
