D-day for future of beds at Centre of Integrative Care in Glasgow
The CIC, on the grounds of Gartnavel Hospital, faces losing its in-patient facilities.
Patients of the Centre of Integrative Care - known by many as the Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital – will find out today if the facility will lose seven inpatient beds.
The CIC, on the grounds of Gartnavel Hospital, faces losing its in-patient facilities - and campaigners say that it will greatly affect an already strained service.
Plans to shut seven beds at the CIC are part of a local delivery plan for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.
There are also proposals to close Lightburn Hospital in the east end and move child and maternity services from Paisley and Inverclyde to Glasgow but after engagement over the last few months, those decisions will be made in 2017.
Campaigners argue that taking the holistic centre’s in-patient facilities - offering treatments for long-term conditions like cancer, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, Motor Neurone Disease - will leave current users with nowhere else to go.
Campaigner Catherine Hughes explained: “The health board tried to shut the beds in 2004-5 and we mounted a massive patient-led campaign then.
After 15 months, we got them to do a U-turn, and they said it wasn’t clinically or cost-effective to close the unit.
“In 2010-11, they came back with cuts and wanted to close the unit again, then came up with the idea of keeping some beds open.
“It’s been a gradual dismantling since then, and we feel they’re winding the service down, deliberately.”