A protest is to be held outside Dorset County Hospital outside the Children’s Centre, at 08:00-09:300, on Wednesday 8 October. This is to lobby the meeting of the Dorset County Hospital Trust at which it is intended to decide whether or not the Pathology Laboratory is to be privatised.
The Pathology Laboratory is a highly skilled and highly efficient arm of DCH and runs well within its cost parameters. It provides a rapid turnaround on critical test results and is invaluable in assisting DCH consultant, GPs and other medical staff through the Trust in arriving at speedy and accurate diagnoses.
The proposal is to close the DCH Pathology Laboratory and transfer the service to a private company based in Taunton. Not only is this an overt privatisation of a vital service in the face of government promises to the contrary, it is also a serious degradation of the service available at DCH and can only place patients’ well-being and indeed their lives in jeopardy.
If you cannot attend the meeting, please sign the 38 Degrees petition at https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/save-dorchester-hospital-pathology-lab
Please note: We have been given legal advice that this meeting will be in breach of the ‘Gagging Act’ (Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014). Please attend as interested and concerned local citizens. Trade union members, especially local and branch official be aware – they are gunning for you. No banners, no badges, no trades union insignia of any kind. Representatives of interested charities and other professions should also be aware that overt pronouncement of their involvement might draw unwanted attention.
It’s so good to live in a democratic nation!
