SAVE OUR HOSPITALS: A Young Man Died Here

He died after falling from a multi-story car park.

He was sick, he needed help and he was failed by his government and his local health authority, both were too busy counting pennies.

They failed in their duty miserably.

In this town and the immediate area facilities for the mentally ill have been decimated.

Graylingwell Mental Hospital has closed.

Crescent House has closed.

Homefield Psychiatric Hospital has closed.

Queens Road residential facility has closed.

Most of what is left is run by charities.

This is called "Care in the Community".

The English translation of Care in the Community is "hospitals facilities are too expensive so please go away, quietly".

Crudely expressed, yes, but truer than the lame, shameful excuses of the health authority hierarchy.

Excuses that say it is not about money but about a better way to care.

How many more tragedies will happen because of these lies?

Would a heart attack victim be left on a hospital trolley for months?

Would someone with a broken leg be left on their living room floor? No.

But mentally ill patients are left on the street to suffer and sometimes die.

Mentally ill people in Sussex are given the chance of three to six months in temporary residences with treatment.

They are then expected to leave and live a "normal life".

The trouble is most of these people suffer from what a senior psychiatrist openly admits is a degenerative illness that will not be cured but can be controlled with treatment.

Good, caring treatment. Expensive treatment.

So when this young man was "released" into the community he was totally unable to care for himself. The illness is overwhelming, he was lost and he died.

In the days of Charles Dickens there were asylums, Dickens described them and readers were and still are shocked by his words.

Since Dickens we have learnt so much more about mental illness, we became civilised in dealing with the mentally ill.

Progress was phenomenal.

Then we discovered how expensive it was and how little mentally ill people complain, because they do not have the facility to do so.

Various governments have reduced spending on mental health over many, many years.

It's the easy option.

Health Authorities have knuckled under fearful of the wrath of Whitehall.

They have failed their patients.

It is a gross dereliction of their duty of care and they very much share responsibility for a young mans death.

They say it is not about money.

It is purely and simply about money, it is not about better care and I can say that from very personal experience.

Just as two out of three Accident and Emergency Units will close in this area and people will die travelling further for treatment.

That too is purely about money.

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Tony O'Brien, Worthing