Dagenham and Rainham MP, Margaret Mullane, who has been campaigning alongside local residents to persuade the Government to invest in uprating and expanding the Accident and Emergency Department at Queen’s Hospital, has upped the pressure to bring about the funding.
Margaret has taken the campaign direct to the Health Minister to secure the funding that is desperately needed so that the hospital can properly cope with the number of people who attend A&E at Queen’s hospital. The investment in this project would greatly improve the experience for patients and ensure that staff can provide the care and treatment they are committed to delivering. This will end the indignity of ‘corridor care’ that too many patients have had to face in recent years.
Margaret said “We have held a massive campaign in the local community to redesign and expand the Accident and Emergency Department at Queen’s. The hospital was built with a maximum capacity for patients in A&E that is about half of the number that now presents at Queen’s.
None of us want to see our friends, family or loved ones sat in hospital corridors; those scenes are heartbreaking. It is imperative that Queen’s Hospital gets the funding it so desperately needs. So, I have stepped up the campaign with the Minister so that we can end the indignity of corridor care at Queen’s and improving health treatment for people at times of emergency. The Minister has listened and I am very hopeful that we will have good news in the next couple of months.
That would mean that the hospital can then get on with the detailed planning for the work and make arrangements to bring in contractors to get the job done.”