Grantown goes on warpath over 'manifestly absurd' health centre decision
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A meeting so packed that it occupied three rooms and a corridor – and needed messengers to relay questions and answers – ended in a declaration of war over a broken promise of upgraded health services in Grantown.
Following the shock cancellation of phase two at the health centre project, GPs called an emergency public meeting last night in the Grant Arms Hotel and there was nothing like enough room for patients and public who wanted the full facts of the situation.
A situation which clearly appalled and baffled local MSP Fergus Ewing.
"I think the decision to cancel this project is manifestly flawed," he said, to thunderous applause, which echoed twice as the comment reached everyone in the other rooms.
"It is completely wrong and absurd to cancel the money for a project so close to completion."
His colleagues of all political persuasions agreed, he said, and wanted to know why a £2.5 million commitment was being pulled after £2 million of it had already been spent.
He agreed with the general feeling of the meeting that it made no sense to stop the work now – for an unspecified time – when to resume it and complete it would only mean greatly increased costs.
Mr Ewing's advice was for everybody to demand a reversal of the decision, "but the best way is through real letters, not templated ones but individual letters which always carry much more weight, across all the parties."
Hundreds of letters, emails and Facebook messages are now likely to go out to political representatives along with Neil Gray – Cabinet Secretary for NHS Recovery, Health and Social Care – and to Pam Dudek, the chief executive of NHS Highland despite her upcoming retiral at the end of the month.
Dr Al Miles told the gathering, the decision to suspend phase II presented the strath with a whole range of problems it could well do without, and which it had been promised would be avoided by the provision of a modernised and expanded health centre.
But the line had been drawn – literally, as shown on a plan projected onto the wall – when news had emerged that there would be no money to complete the block so vital to so many services the practice wanted to provide.
Dr Miles confirmed that the delay would mean a round trip of at least 30 miles for treatment elsewhere, with associated difficulties for the disabled.
“The 1960s part of the hospital was to be demolished to make way for the extension and that would allow us to accommodate all the services that the community were promised as part of this project would be retained in Grantown.
“Now, as it stands, with the project being paused, we don’t think we can accommodate those services within the footprint of the building that we’re left with.”
“We were struggling, bursting at the seams before this project. We don’t have an increase in clinical space with the work that’s been done so far.
“That can affect our ability to train future doctors which can cause problems for the future of our practice here.”
Local GPs are concerned that services will have to switch to Aviemore Hospital, in breach of promises from NHS Highland.
NHS officials have in turn pointed the finger at the Scottish Government for suddenly drawing a line on available resources due to budget cuts.
Holyrood has in turn pointed the finger at Westminster, insisting that the UK Government failed to “inflation-proof” its capital budget, resulting in "almost a 10 per cent real-terms cut in Scotland’s capital funding over the next four years."
The Scottish Government will reportedly publish a “revised pipeline of infrastructure investment” in the spring, but it is not known precisely what or precisely when.
Local patients were clearly furious at last night's meeting, among them Highland Councillor John Bruce who, to applause, asked: "Why did no-one see this coming?"
The answer from Richard MacDonald, NHS deputy director of estate facilities, was lost in the noise from the three different floors.
One thing that was clear by the end of the meeting was that, for contractual reasons, the delay is expected to cost NHS Highland £500,000.
To acclaim from the main floor, one member of the audience asked: "Could there be any money set aside for Grantown from all the cash sloshing around in the Scottish Government for a national park that's not needed?"
There was no direct answer.
