The Daily Post today splashes a story headlined North Wales patients will not have to travel south for neurosurgery, which tells us that the Welsh health minister, Edwina Hart, has announced plans to improve neuroscience services for North Wales patients, reducing their need to travel for treatment whilst retaining the cherished links with Walton:
An additional neurology service will be developed in North Wales with better services at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd, Bodelwyddan, Ysbyty Gwynedd, Bangor and Wrexham Maelor Hospital.
The piece has strong echoes of a story that appeared as long ago as 16 July, 2008, on the BBC News website, which informed us that:
A north Wales Neurology Service will be based at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd, Bodelwyddan, Denbighshire with enhanced services at Ysbyty Gwynedd in Bangor, Gwynedd, and Wrexham’s Maelor Hospital.
The repetition of the message serves to underline that Mrs Hart has now totally, absolutely, one-hundred-per-cent, recanted and repented of her notorious July 2007 announcement that she expected North Wales patients to travel to Cardiff or Swansea for brain surgery. The barmy policy established for her an unenviable reputation as the Cruella de Vil of Welsh politics; it will be some time before she loses it in North Wales.
Mrs Hart is a candidate for the leadership of the Labour group in the Welsh Assembly and, if successful, will become the First Minister of Wales.
“The repetition of the message serves to underline that Mrs Hart has now totally, absolutely, one-hundred-per-cent, recanted and repented of her notorious July 2007 announcement that she expected North Wales patients to travel to Cardiff or Swansea for brain surgery”
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