NIGHTMARES are coming true for Kidderminster Hosp-ital campaigners after a frightening fiasco of events at Ronkswood Hospital in the last week.

With thousands of Wyre Forest patients set to go to Ronkswood when Kidderminster Hospital is downgraded next month, health chiefs have been damned for the unfolding crisis.

The grim picture at Ronkswood has seen a crippling beds crisis gripping the hospital.

Ambulances have been backed up for more than an hour waiting to unload patients while tempers have flared at the accident and emergency department after patients walked out after being informed they faced a three-hour wait.

Save Kidderminster Hospital Campaign chairman Dr Richard Taylor took no pleasure in confirming the grim state of affairs had been predicted by the campaign for years.

He said: "This is the tip of the iceberg and it is going to get worse. There is going to be a major, major disaster.

"The health authority has destroyed Kidderminster Hospital and now look what is happening at Ronkswood.

"They are not coping at the moment and with the impending arrival of thousands of patients and winter coming the problem will get far worse."

The situation at Ronkswood put into perspective Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust chairman Harold Musgrove's assertion that Kidderminster had to be downgraded because it could not get through another winter safely.

Campaigners fear it will be more than a winter of discontent at Ronkswood.

When challenged about the beds crisis Mr Musgrove blamed elderly "bed-blockers".

He said 33 patients were occupying acute beds used for emergency patients because social services had not taken any action.

He added: "It is an appalling situation which puts an impossible strain on our nurses when they are trying to provide a high standard of care for patients."

However, Worcestershire Social Services director Peter Gilbert put the figure at 20 patients and stressed the department was awaiting a £1 million cash injection from county council reserves to ease the problem.

And Dr Taylor was aghast Mr Musgrove blamed bed-blocking for the crisis, stating Worcestershire Health Authority drew attention to the problem in 1997.

He said: "Although Mr Musgrove is new to the NHS in Worcestershire surely he has been told about the authority's study and bed-blocking is a long-term problem?

"It is unfair to blame social services for an entirely foreseeable exacerbation."

He added: "We must also ask what has the health authority done since to prepare for this situation, inevitable with the first staff losses that effectively reduce beds and are the consequence of the ill-conceived plan for reconfiguration of hospital services within the county."