Demand for military hospital grows as UK's only war ward struggles with casualties
Last updated at 00:00am on 17th August 2007 Demand for a dedicated military hospital grew yesterday amid an overcrowding crisis at the country's only ward set aside for soldiers.
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MPs and veterans spoke out as rising casualty rates put intolerable pressure on the single NHS ward at Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham.
It has just 14 beds - yet, in the last month alone, 145 personnel have been flown back from Afghanistan and Iraq for treatment.
Selly Oak hospital in Birmingham has just 14 beds on the ward for soldiers
The dedicated "military-managed" ward, with uniformed military nurses working alongside NHS staff, was set up before Christmas following complaints from soldiers who found themselves on ordinary wards, isolated from their comrades and surrounded by civilians with no understanding of the terrors of war.
But now officials admit the unit is too small for the numbers of battlefield casualties, and the overflow has had to be treated on ordinary mixed NHS wards.
The revelations come amid claims from the Royal British Legion that Britain's "military covenant" - which supposedly guarantees fair treatment for fighting troops - is being broken.
Campaigners last night said that wounded heroes - many of whom have lost limbs or eyes - are being left with "the crumbs from the NHS".
Selly Oak has been the main receiving centre for casualties since 2001 as the closure of the old dedicated military hospitals gathered pace.
The last, at Haslar near Portsmouth, shut earlier this year.
Ministers claimed the move would improve care by giving troops access to more highly-skilled NHS staff.
But at Selly Oak, one soldier described waking up to find himself surrounded by "old women and drug addicts", while there were reports of a Para being confronted by a Muslim man who accused him of "killing my Muslim brothers".
The head of the Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, declared mixed military-civilian wards to be unacceptable.
Falklands veteran Simon Weston said yesterday: "We should build a bigger unit for these people, and ideally it should be a separate military wing or building.
"If in years to come we no longer need it, then fine - give it back to the NHS. But our boys shouldn't be living off the crumbs from the NHS like this."
Major General Patrick Cordingley, who led the Desert Rats in the 1991 Gulf War, said: "When I visited Selly Oak recently, I found there was no space for wounded men to sit together and 'decompress', as the military call it - to let off steam as soldiers do without worrying about offending anyone, to share their experiences and draw strength from each other.
"Selly Oak is a model that could be made to work much better, but it needs proper money spending on it."
Shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox said: "The men and women of our Armed Forces deserve the best medical care. Anything less will be seen as yet another breach of the military covenant."
A Ministry of Defence spokesman confirmed that some troops are housed outside the Selly Oak ward, but said each one still has a dedicated military nurse.
The "overflow" space is close to the military unit, he added.
Plans are being considered to increase the number of dedicated beds from 14 to 34, he said.
* Suicides in the U.S. army soared to 17.3 per 100,000 soldiers last year, up from 12.8 in 2005, the Pentagon said. That is more than 50 per cent higher than the rate among civilians.
Nearly 30 of last year's 101 suicides were in Iraq or Afghanistan. There were two suicides in the 100,000-strong British Army in 2006.
