We’re speaking up for the voiceless and the vulnerable.
Here’s an email we received yesterday from a campaign member who regularly attends our meetings and was at our last protest at Hellesdon Hospital. They rely on mental health services, as at least one in four of us will do during our lives:
currently in [redacted – an out-of-area hospital more than 100 miles from Norwich]
because this was the nearest bed obtainable to Norwich !!!
may not be able to be with you all physically on Saturday
but will certainly be with you in spirit !
yours sincerely
and in solidarity
How would you feel if you were forcibly removed from you family, friends and the professionals you know via private ambulance, often in the middle of the night, to a place to which you’ve never been before? How would your friends and family feel? How would they afford to visit you? How can professionals plan for discharge from more than one hundred miles away? Does the NSFT Board think we are people or cargo?
The central Norfolk Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and NSFT promised that shipping people to out-of-area beds would stop by 30th April 2014. It continues now! There has been no acknowledgement, no explanation, no apology, no resignations, no reopening of wards. They simply say nothing and employ PR firms, public affairs consultants and pay themselves a fortune while saying staff should be less well-trained and paid less. Norman Lamb pretends that he is a protester when he is the local MP and government minister responsible for mental health.
Join us tomorrow because you never know when it might be you or your family. Stand up to the cuts, the incompetence and the bullying! Stand up for those who can’t stand up for themselves!
Excellent write-up
great article