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Hospital to get £38m revamp

12:12pm Wednesday 17th October 2007

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The £38million redevelopment of Watford General Hospital has been formally approved by the Department of Health.

Work on the project, which includes a new acute admissions unit containing 120 beds, a new CT scanner, x-ray and ultrasound facilities, will start by the end of this month. It is due to be completed by March 2009.

The new building will be adjoined to the A&E department and, according to hospital bosses, will allow patients to be diagnosed quicker by a greater number of senior doctors.

As a result of the changes, A & E at the Hemel site will shut and an and "urgent care centre", with closer links to GPs, will be created.

For more about the redevelopment see Friday's Watford Observer.

Are the changes going ahead at Watford General a good thing? Fill out the form below and have your say.


Your Say YourWatford Observer

Paul Emerton, Hemel Hempstead says...
2:27pm Wed 17 Oct 07

This is a terrible and deliberate closure of services in good modern facilities and investment into old and dangerous buildings. The £38m will not fix the condemned gas supply, will continue to ignore specific needs of the multicultural community and serves no other purpose as a means to a an end which will as quickly do away with the new "£38m" investment as quickly as it is created. This is the work of political spin doctoring, profits in exchange for peoples health. An "emergency Service" cannot improve if you move it further away from people. All you have to do is a comparison to number 'senior doctors' available per person covered in 1995 to 2009 and you will truely see whether we have gained, or have had our right to live 'sold'. Our Human Rights are being affected - and this will be made very clear.

Kim, Bovingdon says...
9:49pm Wed 17 Oct 07

I agree with everything Paul has said. Yet again, saving money is given higher priority than lives.
It is time the faceless people who make such decisions were made accountable. Maybe if they had to pay a hefty fine out of their own pocket in compensation to relatives of all the people who will die or are disabled because of such madness - it would soon make them use commonsense for a change and treat the people who are paying for this service with the care they deserve.

Dan, Melbourne, Aus. says...
11:51pm Wed 17 Oct 07

I was in Watford A&E around 2 months ago with my mother who had an eye injury, I was speaking to the nurses on duty (which were understaffed by 3 according to them), but they stated that the one reason for them being busy is people using A&E as a drop in for common illness. One Woman on that day claimed to be bleeding from below, in fact she was just having a period - does that not tell us something about our society and how we abuse the free service? They need to save money some how if people use A&E for the wrong reasons. What about having all fresh immigrates to pay for all health care until they have paid enough tax to cover the cost? Other countries do it so why not the UK? I've started living in Australia and I can not claim ANY health care for 2 years, I have to have private insurance - this would save money and stop people using the NHS as a medical hotel.

As normal, the government saving money on health but then will give billions to Africa so the can waste in fraud in their governments!

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