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EXPRESS COMMENT

MINISTERS CAN’T IGNORE THE NEED FOR HEROES' HOSPITAL

Tuesday August 12,2008

WITHIN a few days more than 90,000 people have added their names to a petition calling for the creation of a dedicated military and veterans’ hospital in Britain.

Much of this extraordinary wave of support comes from forces families and veterans.

Any sensible government would understand at once that something must be seriously awry with the treatment accorded to injured troops and recovering veterans for a petition quietly posted on the Downing Street website to gain such a response.

Yet defence ministers have set their faces against any major changes in medical care for injured troops and adopted a tone of self-congratulation about current arrangements.

Only a few weeks ago Derek Twigg, the defence minister responsible, claimed the treatment given to injured service personnel on wards they share with civilian NHS patients at Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham is “second to none”.

Mr Twigg, who is described on one unofficial forces website as being “as much use as a concrete parachute”, claimed this was also the overwhelming view of injured soldiers and their families.

The minister is clearly living on a different planet to many of the soldiers, sailors and air crews he is meant to be looking out for.

A busy NHS general hospital is obviously not the best place for the treatment of wounded service personnel flown home from the battlefield.

These troops do not merely deserve the level of care the perennially cash-strapped NHS aspires to give every British citizen.

For putting their lives on the line in the service of their country they deserve the best care that money can conceivably buy.

That means having their own specialised and dedicated hospital – however much it costs.