Page 10 - Town & Around - November 2021

10 Town & Around November 2021 Tel: 01485 540620 email: editor@townandaround.net
Save the QEH – the story so far

Jo Rust
’m the secretary of the King’s Lynn and District Trade Unions homes or cars.
Council and a local borough councillor for the ward of We’ve held a public zoom meeting to help local residents who are
ISpringwood, which has the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in the area. concerned join in the campaign and we’re utilising social media – with
Like many people I care passionately about our public services and the both Twitter and Facebook being invaluable tools. They enable us to
NHS, so when I learnt how severe the problems were at the QEH, I make regular contact with the MP and Minister for Health, pushing
couldn’t sit by and do nothing. forward the message that we must have a replacement building. We’ve
also been to Parliament to speak directly to
Our QEH in King’s Lynn was built using a
quick fix method, the RAAC system – the influencers and decision makers. We’ve
made contact with all the parish councils and
Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete. It "There is a direct risk to shared a motion for them to pass as well as
was known when it was built that it only had well. But it shouldn’t be like this – it isn’t
a 30 year shelf life. Which, you might have life and safety of patients, right to be in a competition with other needy
thought, would have focussed the attention on
our decision makers, to come up with a plan visitors and staff due to the hospitals for a replacement building. We
to replace it by 2010. The specific problems potential of catastrophic need you to help us, you can fill in a postcard
to Sajid Javid, calling on him to fully fund a
with RAAC roof planks (remember those new build, you can display a poster or a
schools falling down?) have been known failure of the roof sticker or you can come along to one of our
since the early 1990s. The Hospital’s own risk weekly demos outside the QEH – every
register, which was reviewed by its governing structure due to Wednesday at 4pm. Email me on
board on March 2, stated: "There is a direct jo4nn3rust@hotmail.co.uk for more details
risk to life and safety of patients, visitors and structural deficiencies." or further copies of the postcard.
staff due to the potential of catastrophic We won’t know until November if we’ve
failure of the roof structure due to structural made it to the shortlist. We then have to wait
deficiencies." until Spring 2022 for a final decision to be
The trust asked for £45 million to help them do the failsafe work
but were granted £20.6 million and will need to apply for more funding made. So we need all those decision makers to feel the depth of our
concern until we’ve got what we need – a total new rebuild. We say
over the next two years. no to a phased redevelopment.
Although the QEH wasn’t the only hospital built using method, other
hospitals built have been awarded funding to rebuild, while here that’s
not the case. And our hospital has been labelled “the most propped up
Trust in the UK” – with over 200 acro props holding up sections of the
ceiling.
This is why I’ve been leading a local community campaign to take
action. We hold weekly demonstrations outside the hospital, with the
full support of the current exec team, who know that a community
campaign is exactly what’s needed. We’ve printed postcards for
residents to send to the Secretary of State for Health calling on him to
fund a new build. We’ve distributed information leaflets that give the
background to the hospital and what the faults are there, and also
provide the email addresses of the local MPs and the Minister for
Health for them to contact directly. We know we need to make sure
that the Health Minister has our hospital at the front of his mind when
it comes to making a decision about which Hospital he funds for a
replacement building, which he’ll do in Spring 2022. We’ve also
splashed out on some stickers and posters for people to display in their