Oncology, again.

This banner outside Charing Cross hospital does say it all; two days ago it was announced that Charing Cross will lose it's Accident and Emergency department and that is despite an election promise by David Cameron that it would 'never' shut.

What ever anybody says; close the A and E and the hospital dies. If all it's patients come from referrals then those referrals can just as easily go somewhere else.

Lose the A and E and whole disciplines are lost - the ones that come in as emergencies.

Charing Cross is a medieval hospital with a worldwide reputation- it left Charing Cross in the 1960's to go to purpose built modern buildings on the Fulham Road. Now the big plan is to demolish most of the hospital, sell off most of the land and rebuild.

The waste of money on architects, developers, estate agents and all the rest apart from the scope for corruption will be huge.

At the end of it all?

A shrunken hospital, no space, no light and no scope for any development in the future. It's not the way to go - it's stealing the future from the next generation.

Sigh.

We'll fight it but the closure is part of a big strategic plan - it's going to happen unless we embarrass the government enough.

I was back there for my 28 day visit to Oncology - never the happiest of times - life or death.

I was OK for another month, but it's clear to me that I'm pushing my luck; this last drug of all isn't going to last for ever.

It's like playing Russian Roulette; each time you pull the trigger it gets that more likely that the next time everything will go wrong.

So this month is going to have to work for me like no month ever has before.

There are adventures there for the taking!

I liked this picture from the entrance hall at Charing Cross a lot. It's a black and white study in a series of sea paintings by John Virtue;

Guess where I would rather have been?

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)

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