A new hospital, or everything else?
The early proposals for a new hospital are in a States proposition lodged in 2012, called Health and Social Services: A New Way Forward. This document identified several causes of costly ill-health in Jersey, such as alcohol, obesity, smoking, lack of physical activity and mental health and wellbeing. All of these are made worse by the WW2 baby boomers all reaching their seventies and eighties at the same time.
It identified Jersey’s challenges with attracting and retaining health and social care staff, particularly nurses, partly due to Jersey’s low rates of pay for such vital staff. It reported that our health services are ‘medically dominated,’ noting the ‘absence of an integrated strategy for health and wellbeing promotion.’
It found that the cost of visiting a GP leads to increased use of hospital services, as there is no charge for visits to the Emergency Department. Apparently nearly one in five households had used the Emergency Department for a problem that was neither an accident nor an emergency
In amongst all this, the 2012 proposition identified that the buildings from which services are provided are deteriorating, and that ‘the hospital itself requires complete refurbishment and redesign or rebuild in the next decade.’ It found that local opinion was divided as to whether we need a new-build hospital or a redevelopment of existing facilities.
Somehow, this has led to us planning the biggest building project the island has ever seen.
Last week’s Future Hospital Report from Scrutiny offered two options. We could continue with a new build on the existing hospital site, or we could introduce a further delay of approximately ten years by starting to consider other sites again. Nowhere did I see the obvious third option of refurbishing, maintaining and upgrading the existing buildings.
Given the enormous implications of building a half-billion pound hospital on green-field land, and demolishing the whole existing complex to build — presumably — more flats and shops, I would be glad to see this whole enterprise kicked down the road for another ten years, at least.
Provided, that is, that budgets were reviewed to be able to pay the going rate for the right staff in the jobs that need doing, to look again at the costs of visiting GPs, to de-medicalise our health and wellbeing, and seriously to tackle the enormous problems being caused by lifestyle, transport, fumes, lack of exercise and lack of outdoor activity.
A shortened version of this article first appeared in the Jersey Evening Post on 14 February 2019
A new hospital, or everything else?
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