Madam,

I read in the Cambrian News of the possibility that Bronglais Hospital will be downgraded to a rural hospital, and also the possibility of losing the A&E department.

I wish to argue the case in defence of Bronglais Hospital and the town of Aberystwyth, that any potential downgrading of the hospital would be an outright recipe for disaster.

Hywel Dda University Health Board needs to consider the options carefully. It’s not just about local people, we are a university town. I myself was an Aberystwyth University graduate. Any risks to the hospital could be of considerable concern to the parents of prospective students who wish to apply. They could be nervous if they were aware the health resources weren’t in this town. That could be financially crippling to the university and the local economy at large, if the student numbers decline.

As a volunteer for the last six years for The Royal National Institute of Blind People, I have travelled across Wales, and been made aware of the challenges of towns further away from the cities. If ambulances had further distances to travel, during adverse weather periods, that could put the lives of paramedics at risk as well as patients. We have two major trunk roads into this town and if we get a really bad winter, with deep snow, there will be severe shortages affecting us.

As I understand it, the Withybush Hospital in Haverfordwest runs the risk of closure. They’re 31 miles away from Carmarthen.

If Hywel Dda want to save money, why don’t they bring back the matron. My late mother, who was Welsh and formerly of Guys and St Thomas’s Hospital in London, started her nursing training in 1959, aged 18.

Even she would have been able to diagnose the implications of this predicament.

Any nurse or doctor who trained during the 1950s or '60s had better diagnostic skills, as they weren’t weaned on so much technology.

Health board bureaucrats, with a dazed look from staring at a computer screen all day long, are so disconnected from reality.

If any proposals were recommended to downgrade Bronglais Hospital, that would be just stage one. If the proposal for the new super hospital in Carmarthen went through, they’ll put all the health resources into that new state-of-the-art hospital and Aberystwyth would run the risk of losing our vital hospital.

Aberystwyth is a unique case, based on geography, because we are so far away from larger urban centres.

It takes me around two hours and 10 minutes to get to Carmarthen by bus. I’m very familiar with the buses. There are limited services operating on Sundays and bank holidays. Also local bus companies are struggling financially.

Yours etc,

Peter O’Driscoll, Penparcau, Aberystwyth.

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