I read that Brighton and Hove City Primary Care Trust is considering "closing three small wards at the Jubilee block at the Royal Sussex County Hospital" (The Argus, November 10), including the HIV ward.
As the representative for patients with HIV, I am appalled the PCT has not informed me of its decision.
The HIV ward recently moved, at some expense, from the Brighton General Hospital site to Howard 2 in the Jubilee Block. To now consider it for closure shows incompetent planning.
Apart from wasted money and the insulting lack of consultation with patients, there appears to have been no thought as to where to put HIV in-patients, who require high-quality, specialist care and treatment, which can't be delivered on a general ward.
I consider the Lawson HIV out-patients' clinic and its in-patients ward Howard 2 in the Jubilee block an efficient department in an inefficient trust.
Brighton's HIV clinical services are among the finest in the country. This ward is a regional centre of care for seriously-ill in-patients.
To close it would display an ignorance of the HIV department's work and a wilful disregard of its importance.
I oppose any such closure and urge any HIV patients to contact me with their views. I also urge anyone else who would be affected by this closure to contact the trust with their views.
I would have preferred to keep my views within the trust's normal channels. However, if it prefers to negotiate in public, through the pages of The Argus, then so be it.
-Paul Clift, patients' representative (HIV/AIDS), Lawson Unit, Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton
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