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JOHN Leech is presented a red card petition by councillor Andrew Fender.
MP ambushed by red card petition over cancer wards
Miles Skinner21/ 7/2005
LIB Dems and Labour party members are still waging a bitter war of words over the General Election result in Withington - almost three months after the event.
MP John Leech, the Lib Dem who ousted Labour's Keith Bradley after his 17-year tenure as MP, is still coming under attack for using concerns over the future of Christie Hospital in his election campaign.
Five Labour party activists ambushed Mr Leech as he made his way to a surgery at Chorlton Library and presented a petition made up of 500 cards signed by residents. They asked Mr Leech why he created a Save Christie Hospital Campaign when there was no danger of it closing.
Thomas Graham, Joint Youth Officer for Withington Labour Party said: "The ease in which we have been able to find support for our campaign underlines the growing discomfort locally about the authenticity of Mr Leech's claims.
"We have come across dozens of people with connections to the Christie Hospital who said they were deeply upset and worried when they received Lib Dem leaflets during the election. They were led to believe that Christie Hospital was in danger of closing."
Mr Leech, who has yet to settle into a constituency office, based his campaign on a statement agreed by doctors at Christie's which suggested they were concerned about its future
Mr Leech said he would be sticking by his claims that Christie's Hospital needed to be safeguarded.
Last week he took his own 1,500 signature petition to Greater Manchester Strategic Health Authority.
He said: "The authority recognised the legitimate concerns of the doctors at Christie's and my constituents. Labour are peddling blatant lies in an attempt to undermine what is really going on at Christie's.
Christie's released a statement saying: "We can confirm that, when a regional review of services started, our medical staff committee organised a 'petition' (statement) which raised concerns about one of the possible outcomes of the review.
"This statement detailed how the doctors felt services should be best organised for patients and flagged up concerns about the dislocation of any cancer services from the Christie Hospital."
Dr Nick Slevin, chairman of the committee, said: "When the review was announced, we had concerns that services at the Christie could be broken up and moved.
"The Medical Staff Committee therefore decided to organise a statement raising these concerns and ask fellow doctors to sign it."
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I for one will not be voting Lib Dems again and good on the labour councillors for confronting him!!
27/07/2005 at 11:21