Letter to the editor: We want the truth about BSBV

Having received the Sutton Guardian on Friday, I was interested to note your front page article about the postponing of a decision by the BSBV team - that it had been due to recommend formally the closure of St. Helier Hospital's A & E and maternity units on Wednesday, February 20.

I attended, with many others, the public meeting about St. Helier on Thursday evening, February 21, ie the next day when we were told that no decisions had been made about the BSBV's recommendations but that the BSBV team would be going out to public consultation in June after they had made a decision on their recommendation.

I am concerned that we, the public, are consistently not being told the full truth of what is happening.  Thursday's meeting at Carshalton Boys' School made it quite clear that there was overwhelming opposition to any closures at St. Helier.  People were not comforted by the astonishing statement  that, with travelling times longer to associated hospitals if St. Helier's A & E and Maternity Departments are closed, 'treatment can start in the ambulances.'

Will this, for example, comfort a mother with an abrupted placenta during the process of giving birth?

We should just like the truth, please!