NHS Grampian invest in city but not in Inverurie

NHS Grampian will spend £67 million on developments in 2012 but there is no mention of a new health centre for Inverurie.

It may come as a surprise to many that the unelected Board have decided to invest in a new Health Village in Frederick Street, Aberdeen.

This £29 million development will provide X-ray, ultrasound, minor surgery, physiotherapy, cardiology, speech and language therapy & sexual health services.

Infact this is a similar list of facilities that were proposed for the Garioch Life Centre which was scrapped last year.

So Frederick Street, barely a mile from Foresterhill is to get a Health Village whereas patients in Inverurie, 16 miles distant have to travel for treatment.

The Board of NHS Grampian needs to be scrapped & replaced by a balanced, elected group of sensible people.

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One copy of Connect between 18 councillors!

Communication is a fascinating subject - particularly so when discussed in relation to politicians.

At its most basic level communication is simply listening to another point of view. And, in the case of politicians, taking it under consideration when coming to whatever decision they reach.Communication, in the case of politicians, means keeping in touch with the public.

In the case of Aberdeenshire Councillors this is particularly hard as they have to share a single copy of each of the local papers and also, from this issue, a single copy of Connect.

For twenty-seven issues they had been receiving complimentary copies but servicing the Garioch Area Committee was becoming expensive.

The editor of Connect approached the Garioch Area Manager to request that the Council purchase copies for the councillors.

Now you have to admire the austerity approach of the Council. It appears that the 18 members of the Garioch Area Committee share one copy of the local papers and will in future be sharing one copy of Connect.

This was the reply received by the editor from the Garioch Area Manager:

"I've made enquiries of the people who have received Connect in the past and, while they all welcome the magazine, the vast majority would be content to read a copy which is available here (as we do with the local papers)."

These are the same councillors who, along with their colleagues on the full council, managed to claim, or authorise, £4.2 million* in mileage costs in the last financial year. (* The Press & Journal)

And this is the same council that hopes to persuade community volunteers to take on additional tasks to help the council make its enormous budget go further.

Perhaps the reason they are not interested in buying and reading the local press is that they don't want their narrow field of vision clouded by consideration of wider issues.

They think they know what is best for us. So did Gordon Brown & Co and look at the mess they left to be cleaned up . . .

And, closer to home, consider the state Aberdeen city's finances are in - the councillors probably shared a copy of the Evening Express to save on their multi-million pound overspend.

If our councillors are serious about understanding their local communities they should read their local papers and magazines like Connect.

These publications mirror local opinion but, as with many in The Martian's sights, some councillors & council officials are "on another planet".

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Is the Trust to be trusted?

NHS Grampian are to carry out a major public consultation exercise on the future of health care in Inverurie.

Consultation there may be but the decisions may already have been made which is typical of the way this out of control health authority operates.

NHS Grampian force out of hours patients to travel to Aberdeen but they have a health centre sitting unused in the evenings and a hospital which is open all hours but not for local emergencies.

Inverurie demands local health care 24-7. We had that in the past with the on-call GP system; we had reduced cover with G-DOCS and now we have virtually no cover from GMED which they eventually plan to remove completely.

An examination of the system is long overdue but beware manipulation by the senior management of NHS Grampian.

NHS Grampian's policies led to cuts in Inverurie's services; increases in infection rates at Aberdeen's hospitals and the discredited NHS-24.