Worrying Review

Even more worrying than his mission to force the closure of Ronas Ward is the “honest truth” statement by Mr Roberts “that Shetland only has a hospital the size of the GBH because of its island location”, and “you don’t need a hospital like that to provide care for 22,000 people” (NHS chief: closing hospital’s Ronas Ward is most ‘efficient’ way of cutting spending; SN, 16/01/17).

 He obviously has no idea (or is he just another truth economist?) as to why the present hospital was built in 1961 to that size for a population of just 17,000.

It was built not just for the population of Shetland, but as the emergency hospital for all the fishing fleets in the northern North Sea. Not only is that still the case today, but the Gilbert Bain is also the emergency hospital for the oil industry in the northern North Sea.

If we are not careful the closure of Ronas Ward will be the first step in his “review of hospital size” and he will have Shetland back to the level of hospital provision we had in the 1950s.

Allen Fraser
Meal
Hamnavoe
Burra