£500 gift to boost Redditch Alex appeal fund - The Redditch Standard

£500 gift to boost Redditch Alex appeal fund

Redditch Editorial 28th Nov, 2015 Updated: 18th Oct, 2016   0

“I’M STUNNED” – that was the verdict of Save the Alex chairman Neal Stote after he opened an envelope from an anonymous donor.

Inside was £500 in notes, a contribution from a local woman determined to support the Save the Alex campaign’s battle to retain services at the Woodrow Drive hospital.

“I’m lost for words,” he said, before recovering to say, “this just goes to show what this hospital means to the people of this town. They fought long and hard to get it, they raised thousands of pounds to equip it and now they don’t want anybody, and that includes Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, to take it away from them.”

The donor had dropped the money off at the offices of the Redditch Standard but had insisted on anonymity. Other donations have followed and they come after big-hearted Redditch resident Ken Todd had started the ball rolling with a £1,000 donation.




The campaign is currently desperately raising money to make a legal challenge to the decision by the trust to close the Alex’s maternity unit earlier this month. The case is now in the hands of local solicitors Irwin Mitchell.

They are challenging the move on the lack of public consultation undertaken by the trust, which admitted it had been aware of staffing problems in the neo-natal unit for five years yet decided to close it in six days.


“With maternity gone, it really puts a question mark over the future of Accident and Emergency and paediatrics because the hospital would then be likely to lose its status for training doctors,” said Neal.

“We just want the best possible outcome for local residents.”

Local MPs and council leaders of Redditch, Bromsgrove and Stratford met with Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt last week to demand a halt to the cutting of services at the Alex.

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