Letters To The Editor

SIR, - The amount of support generated by the save Coronation Hospital campaign is impressive. I am grateful to our civic leaders for sensing the public mood and moving so quickly to ensure that it is given expression and to our local media for so promptly aligning their sympathy and support.

Inevitably the Airedale NHS Health Trust management will be driven by the needs to spread resources over an ever growing demand for NHS care and treatment.

We are fortunate though in that this humble hospital, far from the old established city and teaching centres, has been recognised as in the top ten hospitals in the country and with an enviable reputation for care of its patients.

In these circumstances, I hope that the Trust management will pay due attention to the economic as well as emotional costs to be borne by those patients who might otherwise be compelled to travel to the Airedale General Hospital for care and treatment.

These same patients after all are among the taxpayers who meet the cost of running the NHS anyway.

In recent months the Airedale General Hospital has opened facilities at the Springs Lance Health Centre for the provision of tests for those who need to have their blood examined on a regular basis.

Rather than restrict a review to what is being done now at the Coronation Hospital and at what cost, I hope Mr Allen, the chief executive of the Airedale NHS trust, will also consider what other patients' needs could be better met through local provision at Ilkley.

Consideration might also be given to those cross-boundary special treatments such as 'haemodialysis' for which local people have to travel to Leeds (or Skipton) three times a week.

The treatment is not pleasant and takes a long time. It does not require hospital inmacy, but patients who need it for life saving purposes because of their kidney failure have to make a journey that in itself is an additional stress.

In certain circumstances, it is possible to establish a local satellite unit to provide dialysis for patients that is run by a 'mother' until. This could be a good use for the Coronation Hospital.

The Primary Care Trust (PCT) also has in important role to play. The PCT oversees the provision of non-hospital based treatments (general practice, dentists, opticians). The PCT is in a position to take a wider look at what other functions could be undertaken at the Coronation Hospital.

Part of the costs of treating patients in hospital can be offset by increasing expenditure in the fields of prevention, maintenance and encouraging a health lifestyle.

Could not the Coronation Hospital be used to promote one off regular events that inform the public how they can best look after themselves and their families?

Would there not be benefit in conducting periodic health screening and educational sessions whenever the need arises?

If we were designing a health service from scratch, I doubt if much consideration would be given to building local cottage hospitals. But we have the Coronation Hospital and we should take advantage of reviewing it how it can best be used rather than looking to see how profitable it can be disposed of.

Now is the time for local people to contribute more than their petition signatures to the debate and to help determine how they would like their hospital to be used.

Philip Chinque,

Parish Ghyll Drive,

Ilkley.

Figure it out, please

SIR, - In the Gazette (July 11), Mr K Ellis of the Airedale Primary Care Trust was quoted as saying, about the Coronation Hospital, that 'we do intend to involve people in the debate about those services and what buildings we are going to use to provide them'. So could our district and parish councillors ask Mr Allen and Mr Ellis to start the debate by putting on the PCT website or on the Airedale Hospital Trust website figures to show: the main heads of the £1.6 million deficit and the individual amounts of Government money which are to go to set targets. Also, what percentage is that deficit of the total annual expenditure?

There was a £1.4million deficit in 1991, when the beds were lost at the Coronation Hospital. Could it be that a sum within that range is a permanent feature of the accounts; and that in effect, the accounts are in balance with a relatively small amount of money annually overspent, but actually coming from the following year's money each year?

Could the websites say what has happened to a community hospital for Wharfedale? On August 22 1991 - more than ten years ago - the Gazette reported an interview with s spokesman for the then Airedale Health Authority in which it was said 'the biggest scheme in the Airedale Health Authority pipeline is a new community hospital for Wharfedale - a development which could be constructed in either Ilkley or Burley. It was also said in 1991 that the new 'improvements in its Coronation out-patient care...will save many patients from having to travel to Airedale for treatment. Now, in 2002, we are being told that there are proposals to close Coronation Hospital. Now, also in 2002, there are non specific references to improved services for cancer patients and a stroke unit. Will someone be writing in ten years hence to ask where they are?

To declare my interest: with clearer understanding than myself, my late wife urged me to attend Coronation Hospital for X-ray, which showed the need for a major operation for cancer of the bowel.

I survived to help my wife, and eventually cared for her in every way imaginable until she died, as she battled for 18 years with the increasing effects of a severe and paralysing stroke. She was able to receive help, including physio-therapy, by weekly attendance at the Day Centre for the Elderly at the Coronation Hospital, as well as treatment by the chiropody department, during the last few years of her life; and I was helped by the district nurses working from the Coronation Hospital during the last months of her life.

Had the hospital been closed, that help with identifying cancer and coping with stroke would have been removed out of reach. There will be other people in this district who have been, or are, or will be in similar desperate situations. Believe me, it can come out of the blue without warning.

The hospital should be kept open because it is vital to the people of this district. Once the information about the figures is given to us all, it might be possible for people in Ilkley to enter into the debate with Mr Allen and Mr Ellis by suggesting other ways to eliminate that deficit.

Edwin Schirn,

Victoria Grove,

Ilkley.

Asset for the area

SIR, - The Coronation Hospital should definitely be kept open - it is a real asset to the area.

Mrs J Sykes,

Smith Lane,

Denton,

Ilkley.

Keep it going

SIR, - We wish to add our strong protest against the proposed closure of the Coronation Hospital. More important than my wife and I being mature pensioners and me a registered blind member of Deaf blind UK, is the injustice of depriving us of a hospital on which funds have recently been spent on improvements.

Travel to Airedale will be a huge problem for those without private transport, as we will be before long.

Speculating on the reasons for this proposed action: do the politician, who are currently accused of not letting the doctors get on with their jobs, feel that Ilkley and Bingley patients are having it too good? Have funds been squandered by poor management?

Are these proposed closures the result of management having fallen foul of political masters? Now the much-vaunted injections of cash promised by the Government turn out to be barred from maintaining existing quality of service.

Surely these matters should be addressed perhaps by the managers who still strut around with black briefcases looking important.

Laura and John Busbridge,

4 Wrexham Road,

Burley-in-Wharfedale,

Ilkley.

A right royal treat

Sir, - May I, through the Ilkley Gazette, thank the person who nominated me for an unsung hero, and gave me the opportunity to go to the Queen's Golden Jubilee celebrations at Harewood House last Thursday.

I thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon and everyone was so helpful to me and my guide dog.

My friend Anne-Marie described the pageant so well and then we went for our tea. We sat on a table with ladies from Baildon Methodist Church who kept us well entertained. Once again, thank you very much.

Angela Halton,

19 Margerison Road,

Ben Rhydding,

Ilkley.

Come and join us

SIR, -- May I respectfully point out to Mr Bean, who dismisses the Fairfax Singers of Menston as just 'a group of singers', that we are in fact becoming a choir of some considerable reputation, and since our formation in 1997, we have raised over £4,000 for various charitable causes of both local and national status. Our concerts have given pleasure to many hundreds of people throughout the Bradford Metropolitan area as well as in North Yorkshire and Derbyshire, where we have been invited to sing on several occasions, including various prestigious concerts with the Yorkshire Building Society Concert Band, with whom we have a long and happy association.

Perhaps Mr Bean is not aware that to equip a 32-member choir with a full concert repertoire costs upwards if £1,000, an essential requirement if a busy and successful 'group of singers' is to continue to provide enjoyment and vital fundraising to so many people. After all, there is a limit to the number of times we can expect to regale our audiences with 'All in an April Evening', lovely though the song may be!

As to the 'etc' by which I take it he has the temerity to refer to the Wharfedale Music Festival, perhaps Mr Bean would care to come along during the festival Week and learn first-hand about the enormous benefits that we provide to hundreds of performing arts 'stars in the making' each year, not to mention all those who participate in the Special Needs Workshops. In our wide and varied programme there is certain to be something he would enjoy?

Both organisations are at the heart of the Ilkley and district community, to which they give 100 per cent commitment and service. It is gratifying in the extreme to have this commitment recognised and rewarded in this meaningful and concrete manner. And I dare say that the Fairfax Singers of Menston would only be too happy to sing in Ilkley at any time should such an invitation be received. Maybe Mr Bean would like to join us? We are always happy to welcome good tenors and basses with an ability to read music.

Miss EM Holbrook,

Choir and Festival Secretary

Well done, Gazette

SIR, - May I congratulate you on the recent extensive refurbishment of your Wells Road offices and the centralisation of the headquarters of Wharfedale Newspapers in Ilkley.

I believe this will help you to further develop the newspaper within the area. The Ilkley Gazette for many people is the only source of real information that they have within the community and they rely solely upon its accuracy and unbiased reporting, and have done so for many years.

I would like to commend you and your team for the ongoing success of the paper and its quality. May I wish the paper every success in the future.

Coun MIKE GIBBONS

Chairman,

Ilkley Parish Council.