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LETTERS TO YOUR MPS & COUNCILORS
7th January 2002
Councillor Chaman Lal/ Mr Balram Sampla
Birmingham City Council/ Ambedkar Centre for Justice & Peace
Birmingham/ Strood
Dear Councillor Lal/ Mr Sampla,
Regarding suspension of Dr Raj Mattu
It was a pleasure to have met you at your group meeting recently and receiving the opportunity to discuss the appalling situation at our NHS Trust and the plight of Dr Mattu.
It is clear that having spoken out for patient safety, Dr Mattu has been victimised intensely for whistle blowing, and equally distasteful, he has been subjected to racial discrimination.
I hope you will agree that the prejudice that the Trust Management has manifest is totally unacceptable and must be challenged and addressed in the strongest terms available.
I therefore call on your help with this issue and look forward to your support in ensuring that the victimisation of Dr Mattu is brought to an end and that natural justice is done.
I feel very strongly about zero tolerance of racism in modern British Society, and expect the perpetrators (worryingly in senior public office) to be addressed in the firmest manner, and prevented from subjecting any further victims to such suffering under our auspices.
Yours sincerely,
MR BRIAN KING
29th August 2002
Mr Bob Ainsworth
Coventry
Dear Mr Ainsworth,
I was concerned after our meeting on 17th August 2002 about the variety of complaints and the number of complainants that Dr Mattu was facing over his suspension. I raised this matter with some members of the executive committee and they also shared my worries about your information.
I was consequently asked to write to Dr Mattu on behalf of the committee and obtain clarification about this matter. The full committee has now asked that I enclose my letter and his response for your attention.
The committee also feel that they and Dr Mattu should be provided further details about this matter, as they also want reassurance from him that this previously unknown fact is not personally compromising them.
The committee are sure that you will agree that in the interests of human rights Dr Mattu must now be provided details of the claim, that he was supplied a document on 29th May containing 10 complaints from 10 complainants, and the identity of the person(s) that have informed you of this fact. As you can see he clearly denies in writing that this 'fact' has any truth.
The committee and I know that, like us, you also seek the truth. At our meeting you also shared our opinion that none of us should accept untrue damaging rumours and claims against us, especially if we are public servants, as Dr Mattu and you are. The people making these claims must now support their facts, and should clearly have no concerns with doing so if they are speaking the truth.
I forward the correspondence in the hope that the truth can be sought and a just outcome secured, and await your early response.
Yours sincerely,
MR BRIAN KING
FOR DR RAJ MATTU REINSTATEMENT COMMITTEE
10th September 2002
Mr Bob Ainsworth
Coventry
Dear Mr Ainsworth,
Thank you for attending our public meeting on 7th September 2002. I was pleased with the attendance and the level of public interest.
I thank you for your commitment to do every thing possible to help Dr Mattu to be reinstated.
I am also grateful for your contribution and your personal assurance that you will guarantee that Dr Mattu will get a fair hearing and inquiry. I would however be grateful for details of how you intend to ensure this.
I look forward to an early reply.
Yours sincerely and honestly,
MR BRIAN KING
FOR DR RAJ MATTU REINSTATEMENT COMMITTEE
19th September 2002
Mrs Mo Mowlem
Dear Mo,
Please forgive me for choosing this route to contact you. We have found it difficult to contact you due to the security surrounding you as a previous Minister for Northern Ireland. And so it should be. We have deliberately avoided trying to make contact through political connections, as we recognise in all walks of life alliances are not always constant.
We appeal to you on behalf of the citizens of Coventry to help us to get justice for a doctor whose only crime is to have stood up against a corrupt, non-caring management in the interests of patient care. His repayment was to be suspended by David Loughton, the Chief Executive, a failed plumber, and possibly a member of some lodge.
Dr Mattu, like Mr Alban Barros D'Sa before him, was suspended on the 21st February 2002 on allegations of bullying a junior member of staff who gained a promotion to a hospital in Cardiff in March of this year.
Dr Mattu went to Foxford School, University College Hospital, London and became an internationally renowned Cardiologist. Dr Mattu was headhunted back to Coventry to help the Walsgrave Hospitals NHS Trust to evolve into an university teaching hospital. Dr Mattu was appalled upon returning to Coventry to find that the hospital he had known 20 years earlier as a premier institution had declined to amongst the worst in the country. After some time he had come to the conclusion that the problems at Walsgrave stemmed not from the Nurses, Porters, Doctors, Cleaners, and Ancillary Staff, but from a non-caring, inefficient, unprofessional, unqualified management led by David Loughton, who had created a culture of fear (Commission for Health Improvement Report, September 2001). Dr Mattu complained to David Loughton and the senior Trust management regarding emergency admissions, patients in the corridor not seen for 14 hours, and the practice of cramming 5 beds in bays designed and equipped for 4 beds. With the latter Dr Mattu raised the issue in December 1999 with the management following the death of one of his patients, a young man aged 35, who could not be resuscitated through lack of access to resuscitation equipment as a result of being the fifth patient in a 4 bed ward. The management ignored his protests and refused to halt this unsafe practice until August 2001, following the CHI visit. In September 2001 David Loughton denied, publicly on television, that any patients had come to harm as a result of the "5 in 4" practice, despite being fully aware to the contrary. This so incensed Dr Mattu that, under pressure from his colleagues, he agreed to be interviewed (not of his volition) by the BBC. This so incensed David Loughton that he made it common knowledge that he intended to get rid of Dr Mattu.
We appeal to you Mo to meet us, privately, to go over this case in order that you might lend your support. We need people of your integrity and public standing to obtain fair reporting in the local press. We are fully aware of the security of your person, which must be maintained due to your previous office. We guarantee to satisfy you in whatever arrangements you wish to make to permit your security needs.
Thanking you in anticipation of an early reply.
Yours sincerely,
Brian King
For The Dr Raj Mattu Reinstatement Committee
20th January 2003
Mr Bob Ainsworth
Coventry
Dear Mr Ainsworth,
Thank you for persevering with your enquiries regarding the suspension of Dr Mattu. I am grateful for the correspondence relating to this matter and I would be pleased if a number of matters arising from this could be clarified.
A number of us have examined the trust procedures and can confirm no provision for a 'panel' in policy # 16 (Dignity at Work). As you know, Dr Mattu is suspended under policy # 16, however The Trust has now decided to subject Dr Mattu to a 'panel' that will determine whether there is a prima facie case. It would therefore be most helpful and important to know under what policy Dr Mattu's suspension is now being continued.
The claims made by Mr Roberts are somewhat disappointing, particularly regarding the view he has reached and clearly expressed about this matter. It is unfortunate, as we had hoped that he would introduce fairness and transparency into the whole issue. It is regrettable that he has failed to accurately reflect the facts.
Mr Robert's contention that the Trust is not responsible for delays belies the facts. Dr Mattu was suspended on 21st February 2002. The Trust did not secure the signed witness statements of Drs Gieowarsingh and Lencioni until 29th May 2002 (over 3 months later). The Trust refused to release these statements to Dr Mattu until 26th August 2002 (over 6 months). Dr Mattu was not interviewed until 18th September 2002 (almost 7 months). The Trust failed to start interviewing witnesses that might exonerate Dr Mattu until mi-October 2002, despite Drs Gieowarsingh and Lencioni having told the Trust about them in their interviews and statements as long ago as May 2002.
It is misleading for Mr Roberts to claim no fault by the Trust regarding delays, when the Trust hadn't even started to interview most of the witnesses until almost 8 months after suspending Dr Mattu.
I would be obliged to know
exactly what claims Mr Roberts alleges Dr Mattu has made about
the process, publicly or otherwise, as the Re-instatement
Committee has consistently been unable to acquire details of
his suspension from Dr Mattu.
I look forward to an early reply.
Yours sincerely and honestly,
MR BRIAN KING
FOR DR RAJ MATTU REINSTATEMENT COMMITTEE
