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TAKING message to the top... handing in the petition at Downing Street in April were Father Arthur Nearey, chairman of Friends of Our Hospital pressure group, Observer health correspondent Beatriz Ayala, PC Richard Milne and Lynn Day, Infirmary midwife.
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Has any other hospital had to suffer as much as Infirmary?
Beatriz Ayala12/12/2006
ROCHDALE has been left devastated by the Infirmary's loss of maternity, children's and neo-natal services.
Hospital staff, politicians and campaigners were stunned on Friday when the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts provisionally agreed to scrap the three key services.
Father Arthur Nearey, chairman of pressure group Friends of Our Hospital, said: "I deplore the decision.
"They have not taken into account the people of Rochdale, who need the hospital and who have been writing in and campaigning.
"This, plus the earlier decision about accident and emergency, is a double blow for Rochdale.
"Is there any other hospital which has suffered as much as the Infirmary?
"Turning it into a locality hospital with no accident and emergency, no intensive care, no maternity, no children's unit and no neo-natal service means no future and you have to question how long this locality hospital will last.
"Lives will be put at risk and Rochdale people will be worse off."
The cuts are part of the regional review looking into the provision of children's and maternity services.
Health bosses claimed the lives of up to 30 newborn babies could be saved each year by trimming 13 hospitals in Greater Manchester with beds for children and babies down to just eight sites.
The Infirmary is set to lose maternity services, neo-natal care and children's in-patient surgery.
Rochdale MP Paul Rowen said: "It is absolutely disgusting.
"They had no intention of considering Rochdale Infirmary and people are going to be incensed.
"We will be meeting the council's overview and scrutiny committee to ask the secretary of state for health, Patricia Hewitt, to call the matter in.
"The campaign has been a hard-fought one and I am sorry for people like Father Nearey, Carole Ashworth-Lord, Councillor Jean Ashworth and many, many other people who have fought so hard for our town.
"I have always said that the title of the consultation, Making it Better, is just a cruel joke.
"Just like their decision to downgrade our accident and emergency, we will not accept this.
"I hope to meet campaigners as soon as possible to plan the next stage of the campaign.
"The decision to 'consider' options that would have meant retaining services at the Infirmary was just a sop that gave us false hope."
Former MP Sir Cyril Smith, a long-term supporter of the Infirmary, said: "This is an utter disgrace.
"The voice of the people has been cruelly ignored by health bosses hell-bent on destroying the health care that we have built up and fought for over many decades."
Carole Ashworth-Lord, a midwife at the Infirmary, said: "It is absolutely devastating and I'm so, so disappointed.
"We have been totally forgotten in the north east sector, we may as well not exist because they have not listened to a word we've said and have played Russian roulette with it all.
"People are already looking for new jobs, staff who would have been working past their retirement age.
"It is very shortsighted and shows a total lack of vision."
Councillor Jean Ashworth, who works on the children's unit said: "What danger have they put thousands of people in?
"They haven't looked at individual needs and lives will be lost."
John Williams, director for the consultations, said: "At the end of such a long consultation with such a big response, the committee analysed the information and has reached an outcome.
"They have clearly been guided by clinical guidance from the trust to improve children's and maternity services.
"People in Rochdale will be disappointed.
"The real indication of whether their concerns have been listened to is how services are delivered to the people."
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3/01/2007 at 01:28
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After a CARES-organised march of protest involving 4,000 people and nearly 20,000 names on petitions presented to the health authorities and Westminster they still stripped us of our local children's A&E and maternity back in 2003.
The NHS is not safe and is really in a diabolical mess.
The fight goes on.
3/01/2007 at 18:59