Tory axe hangs over birthplace of NHS

Trafford General Hospital was the scene of the symbolic handing over of keys by Labour Minister of Health Nye Bevan in 1948, marking the birth of the NHS.

At the time Bevan was pictured in an iconic photograph with the hospital's matron chatting with the NHS's first patient, 13-year-old Sylvia Diggary.

Yet now Central Manchester NHS Trust, which took the hospital over this year, is set to shut its accident and emergency, intensive care, acute emergency and children's units.

The plans have provoked an angry response from locals, who are mounting a fierce campaign against the Con-Dem cuts, which they believe will end in the hospital closing its doors.

Their campaign is spreading to areas around other hospitals, which will come under increased pressure if they have to pick up Trafford's slack.

Campaign chairman Matt Finnegan, a Trafford local who works for the north-west region TUC, said it started when it looked like the hospital would be sold off.

That threat receded, but then the Central Manchester Trust took over.

Within three months it had put forward the closure plans.

"Last year £1 million was spent modernising the intensive care unit and now they want to shut it down," said Mr Finnegan.

"That is the madness of it."

Campaigners fear that the cuts will end up costing people's lives.

Mr Finnegan said the trust plans to move the cut services to other hospitals miles away, meaning longer journeys for the sick.

One proposal is to move Trafford's A&E to Wythenshawe Hospital, over eight miles away.

"Wythenshawe already has something like 70,000 more people attending A&E than it was designed for," Mr Finnegan said.

"Trafford accident and emergency is attended by 38,000 people a year. Where are they going to go?

"The queues at Wythenshawe will be even longer.

"People will be left lying in the corridors."

Campaigners fear the cuts will make the hospital an easy target for closure, releasing valuable building land.

Resistance is building, with more than 1,000 people marching past the hospital recently to mark the NHS's 64th anniversary.

"We sang 'happy birthday' to the hospital," said Mr Finnegan. "What a tragedy it would be for the birthplace of the NHS to be cut to pieces."