December 6 2019, 21.45
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Bonnie Craven, the Labour candidate for Sutton and Cheam, slammed the plans for a new £500million hospital claiming they will cost lives.
She said: “It is a complete fallacy and a total con. The plan is to downgrade both St Helier and Epsom hospitals and build a new unit within the Royal Marsden Hospital.
“There won’t be a maternity or paediatrics department there. To get those services you will have to go to St George’s in Tooting.
“And they already often shut their doors to new patients because they have no beds. It is going to cost lives, it is horrendously cynical.
“I want to see St Helier uplifted and upgraded with sensible long term planning.”
But according to Sutton and Cheam Conservative candidate Paul Scully, as well as the plans for the new facility, the Conservative Party does intend to inject £100million to refurbish dilapidated St Helier hospital.
Mr Scully, the Conservative Party deputy chairman, says the plans are essential for obtaining a modern day health service for Sutton and Cheam and rejecting those plans is merely for political gain.
He said: “People have been talking about saving St Helier since the 1980s even in times when it didn’t need saving because it is great to whip up voter anxiety via scaremongering for a political campaign.
“If you only knew St Helier hospital, then went into a hospital like Chelsea and Westminster you would be shocked at what we are missing.
“80% of people will still go to the same hospital as the one they do now. St Helier and Epsom will still be urgent care centres.
“The difference is, they will have more planned day care, and all the acute stuff will be in the new hospital and at St George’s.”
Read more about what’s important to south west London constituencies in our 24-page General Election preview special.
