From Peter French.
I WAS interested and saddened to read of the crisis at the General Hospital – in particular the serious shortage of beds, resulting in a request to GPs to treat people at home where possible, and more worryingly patients being discharged prematurely in a bid to free up beds, only to be readmitted because their condition had deteriorated.

I was the project manager of the Jersey Private Hospital Scheme, which would have created many more beds in the Island and would have freed up the Rozel and Sorel wards at the General Hospital for general rather than private use.

Indeed, there had been instances where non-private patients had been placed in these wards during the previous beds crisis, much to the concern of the private health insurers and the private medical insurance policy holders who pay premiums in addition to taxes, as the capacity to treat private patients would have been reduced. I am curious to know what is happening on the Rozel and Sorel wards now.

I am particularly angered because our scheme, which required States co-operation, was rejected by the main assertions by Health chief executive Mike Pollard and the then Health Minister, Senator Stuart Syvret, that a public subsidy was required – which was simply untrue – but more relevantly to the latest crisis, that there were not only sufficient beds in the Island already, but there were actually too many.

At the time we stressed how serious a bed shortage could be in an Island environment with no practical ability to rely on adjacent hospital catchment areas, as would be possible in the UK.

As a footnote, we even offered to buy the replacement MRI scanner, but instead it was paid for by the taxpayer during a time when GST was introduced to bridge a forthcoming public funding deficit.
The Health Minister and his chief executive clearly knew best.
21 South Beach,
Grève d’Azette,
St Clement.