Dear Editor
Your Leader Comment ‘Hospital beds will be blocked if there are no care homes’ (Leader 13.10.15) is absolutely right to point out the obvious link between bed-blocking and the lack of community beds.
The irony, of course, is that when the Health Board proposed to close Llangollen Hospital, it promised that it would use beds in nearby care homes. The truth was completely different – Wrexham Maelor Hospital is full, and patients from Llangollen and the wider Dee Valley are moved as far afield as Deeside for ‘community care’.
That is why, when Denbighshire Council originally proposed to close the Cysgod-y-Gaer care home in Corwen, we in Plaid Cymru – The Party Of Wales made an alternative proposal. This was for the Council to work with the Health Board to utilise the empty beds at the home. That is why we are calling for the merger of health and social care so that there is a seamless care system in place for our elderly, unlike the current set-up where neither social services nor the health board wants to pick up the tab of caring for our elderly.
It’s not too late for Wrexham Council to re-think its plans to close Nant Silyn and work with the health board to ensure that care is available at that intermediate stage between the home and hospital.
Sincerely
Mabon ap Gwynfor
Mabon ap Gwynfor 