A retrograde step for our excellent diabetes services (From Daily Echo)
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A retrograde step for our excellent diabetes services
4:45pm Tuesday 3rd July 2012 in Readers' Letters
THE articles in the Daily Echo on poor diabetes services in Southampton, coupled with the letter on June 22, on the same subject, serve to highlight the deliberate depletion of medical services by this Government. I wrote to The Echo some 18 months ago on this topic to inform them of the withdrawal of the regular sixmonth check-up service offered to diabetics, from the Diabetic Resource Centre, at St Mary’s Hospital.
When on my last appointment there, upon asking for my next appointment, I was informed that there would not be one, all patients were being referred back to their GPs. It would only be possible to see a consultant upon referral from their own doctor. On enquiring why, I was told by a senior member of staff it was due to Government cuts.
In common with most practices, only a once a year check up is offered by most surgeries, and not by specialist staff. It is a retrograde step especially when diabetes is becoming one of the most common and serious complaints, with its very many complications.
Having just undergone two major operations within four days, and contracting one of the hospital bugs, my own diabetes regime was thrown quite out of kilter.
Fortunately I have an excellent doctor, and we have now managed to stabilise the situation. But all patients are not so fortunate, so it’s no wonder that Southampton has one of the worst records for diabetic control in the country, with a continual deterioration. I was a little mystified that the Echo chose not to investigate the situation when I first pointed it out.
Government claims that NHS reorganisation is to give a better service, should fool no one. The object of the exercise is to downgrade the excellent service created in the previous 12 years, resulting in poor services, less staff at all levels and back door privatisation, by this Tory/Lib-Dem coalition.
Mr D R SMITH, Bitterne, Southampton.
