Grantham Journal letters: Appalling way to treat hospital charities
It’s extremely disappointing to see United Lincolnshire Hospitals’ appalling treatment of various charitable organisations who work to provide the various hospitals with donations for equipment.
The closure of the Red Cross Tea Bar in outpatients at Grantham was perhaps one of the more deplorable acts, having been given their marching orders shortly after making a sizeable donation.
In recent weeks, the League of Friends shop at Grantham has had to remove items for sale from the corridor outside. Given that this corridor is not normally used for transporting patients and is essentially a non-clinical area of the hospital, the book stand, clothes rail and items for sale cause no obstruction whatsoever.
It would be helpful to hear from ULHT as to the reasons for this confusing decision. At the very least, ULHT could repay the many years of hard work by the LoF and provide more visible signage to compensate but I fear the ultimate objective is to get the League of Friends out.
Sadly, United Lincolnshire Hospitals is becoming less about community and more about money and pointless rules which only serve to further demoralise the staff. How long before the Dog Leg is no longer allowed to be used for stalls and fund-raising.
Only a few years ago, there were two thriving Red Cross tea bars at Grantham which posed no real threat to the store on site. Today we have no tea bars or cafe provisions in Outpatients and the League of Friends are now virtually unnoticeable because their eye-catching displays have been removed.
Given the very nice ‘exciting’ new coffee bars at Lincoln and Pilgrim, it is hardly surprising that Grantham Hospital continues to feel like the poor relation, suffering from underinvestment. The people involved should hold their heads in shame, but sadly when money and profit are involved, feeling anything other than greed is very difficult. If it isn’t money, then it is a misunderstanding of various rules and regulations resulting in a ‘ban everything’ mentality.
A Grantham Hospital employee