Comment

THE SPECTACLE of Carwyn Jones and his health minister, Lesley Griffiths, cowering in the shadows as Hywel Dda Health Board prepares to tear the heart out of Bronglais Hospital does as much harm to the devolutionary agenda in Wales as to the frayed remnants of voter belief in the vague possibility of responsive democratic government.
The health board has decisively condemned itself in the eyes of the public. By making clear, ahead of public consultation, to both Ceredigion MP Mark Williams and to staff at Bronglais that it will close the hospital’s key colo-rectal unit, it has perpetrated a massive breach of faith.
Not only that. In addition, it continues to try to fool the public.
Its message to Mark Williams and to staff could not have been plainer. Well before the beginning of public consultation, the board has said it will shut this unit. Before, that is, consultation which will inevitably focus substantially on the central importance for patients, and for the future of the hospital, of the range of operations under the general heading of colo-rectal.
Yet the board compounds this assault on democratic input by trying to deny the undeniable, by peddling the long bankrupt assertion that no decisions on future patient services at Bronglais have yet been taken.
So where, at this point, was the first minister who, at last November’s Institute of Welsh Politics annual lecture in Aberystwyth, spoke with such apparent fervour about devolution offering “a form of government which can enable the needs of people in Wales to be most effectively addressed”, and specifically of the “chief responsibility” of the Welsh government being “to deliver the public services so vital to the well-being of the people we serve. Schools, transport, universities, hospitals… – these things really matter and that’s why the Welsh government’s focus must be on delivery in all our areas of devolved responsibility.”
Delivery must of course follow policy. So would the first minister finally acknowledge that the public had declared his government’s hospital services contraction and centralisation policy for rural Wales unacceptable? Would he finally recognise that the health board’s breach of faith was a betrayal too far?
Far from it. The first minister’s response when challenged on the board’s deception has been of a feebleness and a naïvety that would make a political novice cringe. It has been merely to refer, repeatedly, to the £38m building work in progress at Bronglais, and to propose that such could not but be regarded as evidence of the security of district general hospital status.
Quite apart from being simply an evasion, a blatant refusal to engage with questions key to the public wellbeing he espoused in November, this is political illiteracy. Offering as little as this as a response is going to leave even your own AMs shaking their heads in disbelief.
At the same time, everyone knows the dominant Cardiff Bay view of rural mid Wales consists of a deadening combination of puzzlement and irritation. So why, when he returned to his old university in November, did Carwyn Jones waste his breath? Why did he bother declaring: “But we must never allow debate about the process of devolution to supplant debate about its purpose. The main reason that devolution enjoys widespread support in Wales is because people expect it to deliver real improvements in their everyday lives.”
Meanwhile, with a shrinking timidity similar to that shown by the first minister, Lesley Griffiths pledges her support for the health board and declines to meet Mark Williams to discuss the board’s proposals for Bronglais.
In a letter to the MP earlier this month, she parrots the usual stuff about financial investment signifying commitment to Bronglais, while continuing the government’s flat refusal to engage with specifics about patient services.
With withering feebleness she states: “I would challenge the assertion in your letter that cuts are proposed to Bronglais Hospital.” Challenge all you like, Lesley, but you know, and you know we know, the unacceptable truth.

Incredible comparison

Keith Evans sets himself up to be shot down.
Almost incredibly, the county council leader complains about the “uproar” which has greeted criticism of proposed centralisation hospital services away from Bronglais Hospital. Bizarrely, he links his criticism with last year’s resistance to the notion of compulsory purchase orders being wheeled out to facilitate demolition of a sizeable chunk of Aberystwyth town centre to make way for a department store, scattering in its wake a number of local independent shops.
He says: “People in Aberystwyth often want things in the town, but when it comes to changes they don’t want to see things happen.”
It’s this kind of crisp and accurate condensation of the facts that makes Keith more than worth his £40,000-odd a year. Plus expenses, historically problematic though they may have been.