Mole refuses to back down
IPSWICH MP Chris Mole refused to back down as the controversy about moving heart attack victims to other hospitals in the region raged around him.
IPSWICH MP Chris Mole refused to back down as the controversy about moving heart attack victims to other hospitals in the region raged around him.
He insisted today:
- More lives would be saved by taking heart attack patients to Norwich, Basildon, or Papworth near Cambridge.
- There was not enough money for a fourth heart attack centre in the region, serving Ipswich and Colchester.
- A 165-minute journey would not mean more deaths in the back of ambulances on the roads of East Anglia.
Mr Mole said: “I have spoken to cardiologists at Ipswich Hospital who are in favour of this and say that it will mean more people from Ipswich surviving heart attacks.
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“The procedures that are available at the centres offer a far better treatment than that available through thrombolysis (clot-busting drugs) that are currently administered at Ipswich.
“The angioplasty treatment is a great advance. It will mean more people will survive serious heart attacks.”
Mr Mole insisted that the number from Ipswich surviving serious heart attacks would increase despite the long journeys the patients would face.
“I am supporting this move because it is good for the people of Ipswich, not the hospital, not the NHS. If I thought people's lives would be saved by being treated on the moon I would support that!”
He said a fourth angioplasty centre covering Ipswich and Colchester could not be afforded by the NHS.
“These three centres are being set up out of the NHS budget. They are expensive and there is not the money in the budget for a fourth centre in Ipswich. If we pressed for that there would be no centres and there would be a worse centre across the region.
“Ipswich is not losing something, people in the area are getting access to a much better service - a service which will save lives.”
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