Residents of Kings Lynn are growing frustrated after a 2-year battle to get funding for a new hospital.
The Queen Elizabeth Hospital is crumbling, and the roof is being held up by steel and timber supports. It has been approved for the first stages of planning permission, making the first step in the right direction.
Jo Rust, the secretary of Kings Lynn & District Trade Union Council, said it “will be a disaster if we don’t get funding”. She’s part of campaigners who have been going to the hospital weekly to protest for new facilities.
The campaigners have been doing this for the past two years in hopes to secure funding for their local hospital. This funding will make the hospital better equipped to deal with healthcare needs and provide more jobs for locals.
The hospital is one out of five not added to the New Hospital Programme which was put in place by the government to renovate hospitals made from inadequate materials. The materials expired over 10 years ago now for Kings Lynn hospital, with their end of life is predicted to be 2030.
Ms Rust says that she and her fellow campaigners “feel let down by politicians who come to have picture opportunities at the hospital” yet have not been able to secure them the funding they need to help the locals.
In the last board meeting the chairs reported that “it was very disappointing, and somewhat frustrating” that the funding hadn’t come from the Department of Health and Social Care.
The hospital is fast approaching their end of life date and still have not had any confirmation if they will be receiving funding. However, the building of the new multi-story carpark will free up the room required for a new hospital to be built on the land.
