Madam,

Bronglais Hospital’s Y Banwy Ward will be closed to patients awaiting care packages by the end of the year or the end of this financial year at the latest, according to Hywel Da university Health Board’s meeting on 26 September.

This is in line with Hywel Dda’s ‘Strategic Aim’ of reducing the number of beds at Bronglais. Although it is a brave health board which reduces bed numbers at the time of the annual winter bed crisis.

The plan is still to site the chemo unit on the former Y Banwy Ward, at goodness knows what cost, although it is believed that the project as a whole is short of £600,000 of funding.

In these times of fiscal difficulties, the Hywel Dda board remains confident that the funds can be met by fundraising.

The way in which we receive our care services is changing and Hywel Dda are re-positioning themselves to best meet the coming challenges and this provides one explanation for the reduction in beds and the moving of patients with dementia to medical and surgical wards as a direct result of re-siting the chemo unit.

If, for any reason, this project does not come to fruition, are we going to be left with a part-finished chemo unit, or some other kind of white elephant?

Can the Hywel Dda Health Board offer the public reassurance that mixing dementia and nondementia patients on the same ward will not have a negative effect on the care of either category of patient and that the loss of more hospital beds at Bronglais Hospital is part of a bigger plan that will benefit the people of Ceredigion?

Yours etc, George Holloway, Rhoshendre, Waunfawr, Aberystwyth.

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