A PETITION to stop the downgrading of the A&E at Macclesfield Hospital has gained more than 6,000 signatures in under a week.
After the Express learned that the A&E could be at risk as part of NHS cutbacks, Claire Gilham who was a nurse at Macclesfield Hospital for 18 years and worked in the emergency department and critical care jumped to action and set up an online petition.
And she soon started getting support from residents – with upwards of 6,000 people signing the petition within days.
There were nearly 3,000 signatures in just the first 24 hours.
Claire, who lives in the Peak District and works at a GP surgery in The High Peak, has warned that lives will be lost without an A&E. She said: “If it were to lose the emergency department, lives would be lost due to extended transfer times to other hospitals.
“The treatment for patients with stroke, heart attack and sepsis are time dependent. There is not the capacity in infrastructure to make closing hospitals such as Macclesfield viable without threatening patients lives.
“Each hour that passes without treatment the mortality increases by seven per cent.”
She says the change would have an impact on other departments.
Claire said: “It would also seriously limit the provision of operating services which would also have to be moved to another hospital.
“The potential loss of the emergency department and intensive care would also mean the loss of children’s and maternity services and operating facilities, as they are inextricably dependent.
“The loss of these services at Macclesfield would mean patients would have to be transferred to other hospitals by paramedics, which we simply do not have enough of.
“I know first hand the high quality care Macclesfield gives and it remains my hospital of choice for myself and my family.
“It serves Cheshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire and we need to save the A&E.”
The petition entitled ‘Stop the downgrading of Macclesfield hospital, keeping full service provision’, is on a government website. If it gets 10,000 signatures, the government will have to respond and at 100,000 signatures, the petition will be considered for debate in Parliament.
