SINCE the Cabinet Council meeting on the 26th of July where it had been decided long before the meeting to close care homes and day centres, my husband and I attended yet another meeting last Wednesday, August the 15th, with other parents and carers at Shire Link Day Centre.
This meeting was to tell us about when the closure will take place. There was a deputation of five women from the department of Health and Social Care to tell us this.
None of us wanted to hear what they had to say as we had all heard it many times over the last year.
The meeting was obviously of little importance as Alison Comley the Strategic Director of Health and Social Care was absent and also Glenise Morgan who is in place of Jon Rogers.
The meeting was a very angry one on the part of the parents and carers as we all felt our views have never been taken into consideration at any meeting.
We all want the day centres to remain open. Several of the service users present were upset and in tears at the thought of closure as they have been together in the same place for many years.
Alison Comley sent her deputy who totally ignored everything we said and kept giving us the party line. Nobody will listen to what we have to say.
We need more small places like Shire Link in the community where the service users can be part of what is taking place around them.
Our daughter Jane for example goes to a coffee morning at a church in Southmead which she loves and through the year makes cards and little presents which she can give to her friends and family.
She is part of a small group which attend the day centre.
This is the way forward not through three large bases incorporating severe to less handicapped service users. This will not work!
My husband is a retired GP who, when in practice, looked after mentally handicapped patients in Hortham and Brentry hospitals until they closed, so has a much greater understanding than any of the members of the so called Health and Social Care team who chop and change jobs from year to year. Service Users of which our daughter is one do not like change.
Going to the day centre is part of their daily life and to uproot them from this and split them from the friends many have been with over thirty years is cruel thing to do.
My husband asked how much it costs to run Shire Link and nobody knew the answer.
Shire Link already belongs to the council because it is on council land. The site was a school and is now divided into various areas which all pay rent to the council so why does Shire Link have to close?
The council want to change the system to save money.
Its proposals are ill thought out, if they have been thought out at all! They move from post to post so quickly they have no time to understand their remit.
This is one more council mistake!
More money is needed from the larger pot to be put into Health and Social Care and less into so called road improvements for example the bus lane put on the Henleaze Road junction to the White Tree roundabout which now has permanent nose to tail traffic.
What a waste of money and the ridiculous 20mile an hour restriction on residential roads.
The whole city is already almost at standstill.
I hope and pray someone with some common sense will come forward to be our mayor so that we can be proud to say we live in Bristol.
Mary Thomas
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