Half a picture

Most people in south west Wales will be understandably be asking just how temporary is “temporary” over plans to move emergency neurosurgery from Swansea’s Morriston hospital to Cardiff due to yet more local staffing problems. And it is only a matter of time before the calls begin for pledges from bureaucrats to be underpinned by political assurances - especially when you remember that parts of Morriston are themselves sixty-five year old ‘temporary’ structures dating back from the second world war.

The Beans on Toast, who normally treat the save-our-neurosurgery campaign as a personal badge of honour, seem fairly sanguine over the situation; having relegated news of the move to the rear section of their Saturday edition. They even appear resistant to the growing local paranoia which feeds on the fact that recruitment and training of new doctors in Wales is controlled by the Deanery – a part of Cardiff University. Or is it more likely that they haven’t figured that part out yet?