As health chiefs gather to discuss the future of stroke services at Bronglais hospital Lisa Francis, Chair of Protect Bronglais Services, delivers one final message.

“PBS believes that Hywel Dda University Health Board has failed to recognise the needs of the population it serves in Mid Wales which includes large swathes of people living in Western Powys and Southern Meirionnydd. Bronglais is as much their hospital as it is Ceredigion’s. Sadly, their needs have been neglected.

“We only have to look at the location of District General Hospitals in Wales to understand the significance of Bronglais –‘the only Hospital that reaches the parts other Hospitals can’t reach’, as our slogan says!

“For too long, Hywel Dda has viewed Bronglais as the problem rather than as part of the solution.

“They’ve also failed to properly consider access to stroke services for patients, carers, and families. Viewed through a patient or carer’s lens, the proposal that Llanelli, located close to Morriston Hospital, should be the sole sub-acute stroke unit for Hywel Dda makes no sense at all and the detail surrounding how patients will be transferred there is alarmingly poor – in short the ‘plan’ is an insult to the intelligence of the people of Mid Wales.

“For example, nothing is mentioned about post-stroke emergency like a heart attack or ischaemic bowel. Llanelli Hospital doesn’t have an A&E, so if you present with stroke at Bronglais, get transferred to Llanelli for your rehab and have such an emergency befall you, you’d need to be ‘blue-lighted’ to either Glangwili or Morriston. Any Stroke Unit that provides rehabilitation needs to have immediate access to an A&E Department and it is frankly inconceivable that the Health Board never considered this when drafting up these plans.

“The PBS fight to save our Bronglais SU has been ongoing for over a year.

“In a bid to get the Health Board to recognise that the half-baked plan of ‘Treat and Transfer’ of stroke patients for their rehabilitation to hospital sites two hours south is unsafe and ill-thought out, we’ve held public meetings, raised awareness, introduced a Senedd Petition (17,885 signatures), which in turn led to a Senedd debate which received unanimous cross-party support, and finally, obtained a meeting with the Health Minister.

“Naively perhaps, I thought that the Minister would intervene, (he could), and get this hare-brained idea consigned to the waste-paper basket where it belongs. However, his written response to me was disappointing. It’s clear that he prefers to defer to the judgment of the Health Board in such matters.

“PBS calculated that a record 800 people sent a very clear message to Hywel Dda at the ‘Cwtch Mawr i Fronglais’ last Saturday in a public show of unity and support for our hospital and they cannot have failed to have heard that!

“This fight is about justice – it’s about having the same standard of health treatment as people living in other areas. Hywel Dda doesn’t understand the geography. The ‘geography’ cannot be moved, so they need to come up with a better plan.

Is it difficult?

Yes it is.

Is it impossible?

Absolutely NOT.

So as Chair of PBS my message to Hywel Dda is this: ‘Get back to the drawing board and properly earn your money – those inflated salaries we all pay for!’”