My letter to the Times and Star and the Whitehaven News regarding the proposed closure of Yewdale Ward:
Sirs,
It has been great to see coverage of the rebuild of West Cumberland Hospital - built by a Conservative government originally, put at risk a number of times under the last Labour government, and rebuilt by a Conservative government.
The hospital now has a surfeit of land and buildings that could be used for the development of our mental health inpatient facilities by Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust (CNTW), rather than closing them.
Josh MacAlister MP wants “confidence that the proposed closure would improve services”, but he should oppose closure or reduction in entirety.
It will remain the case that there will be a need for inpatient facilities and these patients, perhaps more than many, need to be close to family and support networks to be given a chance to rebuild lives that can often be decimated by a mental health crisis.
I wish I could relay to your readers some of the harrowing stories I’ve had to listen to, and get involved in. The families that are failed by CNTW over and over again. It is luck, rather than good judgment, that some patients in the care of CNTW are even alive.
On takeover, CNTW were sold to us as the saviour of mental health services in Cumbria. And while there may have been small steps in the right direction, they are very, very small; and painfully slow. CNTW have been given chance after chance, and had to be taken to task by me and others on numerous occasions.
The fact is that too many mental health patients are now transferred now not to the Carleton Clinic in Carlisle, but to the North East - even just for assessment. The closure of Yewdale ward will only exacerbate that, and is a false economy in the short to medium term.
As a Member of Parliament, you are a voice for the voiceless. I hope all of our Cumbrian MPs will come together to fight this, which is the start of a slippery slope for us all.
Kind regards
Mark Jenkinson
