Remember this? Cameron ran the election on the slogan “I’ll cut the deficit, not the NHS.” Enough people saw through his bullshit to deny him an outright majority in Parliament, but propped up by the Lib Dem stooges, the Tories are doing their best to funnel our money into bankers’ pockets by selling off our healthcare to the highest bidder.

The Children’s Heart Surgery Unit at the Yorkshire Heart Centre in Leeds, which provides specialist care for vulnerable children from all over Yorkshire and the Humber is the latest frontline service to face the axe.

The threat comes as a result of a national review into children’s congenital heart services and also of children’s neurosurgical services which calls for the closure of four, possibly five, of the eleven existing units carrying out paediatric cardiac care.

The hospitals earmarked to lose children’s heart surgery will be selected from among the Freeman in Newcastle, Leeds General Infirmary, Glenfield in Leicester, Oxford Radcliffe, Southampton General and the Royal Brompton – one of three units in London.

The plan is to replace these units with expanded services at Liverpool Alder Hey, Birmingham Children’s, Bristol Children’s, Guy’s and Great Ormond Street hospitals.

They will not only have to expand provisionally for the patients from the five threatened units, but must also provide care for the family who will be forced to travel in search of treatment.

The threat of closure hanging over the Leeds and Newcastle units is a further blow to the northern regions of England which are suffering disproportionately from the slash and burn austerity meted out by central government.

These cuts will have a huge impact on the families of children receiving care who are likely to be in hospital for a pro-longed period of time. Families will be forced to travel significant distances when local services are cut, putting a serious strain  on family life, jobs and other commitments which have already been put under immense pressure by job cuts, wage freezes and cuts to welfare entitlements.

For many children the units facing closure will be somewhere they recognise and are accustomed to, where they will have built up a relationship with the doctors and nurses. This will be completely destroyed if they are forced to move to other units for treatment.

Shutting down this unit will have a detrimental affect on Leeds General Infirmary as a whole as it will reduce services it provides and set a precedent, putting other wards in jeopardy.

The Tories pledged not to cut frontline services, yet a children’s surgery at the heart of the community is hardly ‘red tape’.

It is unbelievable that quality care for our children is being put at risk, when thousands of Tory Party donors evade £90billion in tax every year.

The NHS is not safe in the Tories’ hands. Waiting times are increasing, operations available on the NHS are being slashed and thousands of workers are losing their jobs.

Cameron is committed to installing a US-style healthcare business in place of the NHS before the next election. Leeds is just one example of a national attack on the NHS which has been bought and paid for with our money and hard work.

Despite the efforts of Tories and the right-wing media to undermine confidence in the NHS, public support has never been higher. This is hardly surprising, because in spite of the chaos introduced by Labour’s semi-privatisation and the Tories’ Health and Social Care Bill reforms, the NHS remains one of the best publicly run and funded health service in the world.

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