Madam,

I have to assume that the Cambrian News was given access to an unabridged copy of the Ffestiniog Memorial Hospital Defence Committee’s letter to First Minister Carwyn Jones (sent mid October) and signed by myself as chairman. If so, then you will have seen our detailed evidence (on five different issues) for claiming discrimination by the Betsi health board against the Welsh uplands.

Over the past four years we have repeatedly sought a response to each of those serious issues from successive Betsi chief executives, as well as from current and past health ministers. But to no avail!

So what do they have to hide? And why would the Cambrian News seek an out-of-context response from a Tywyn councillor to the emotive issue of the linguistic divide in Meirionnydd, if not to be intentionally divisive?

Your readers - and the councillor also, for that matter - have the right to a clearer picture than the one presented in last week’s Cambrian News.

For the past four years we have maintained that the Betsi has favoured the coastal belt of north west Wales at the expense of the rural uplands.

One ‘justification’ by them is that the population of those areas rises appreciably over the holiday period. For example, in 2015: it was agreed that MIUs in Bryn Beryl and Tywyn would get two extra days a week of minor injuries cover in summer to cater for visitors to those areas, but no cover whatsoever for the indigenous population of the Welsh uplands, despite the fact that Blaenau Ffestiniog itself attracts an increasing number of extreme-sports enthusiasts annually (200,000-plus being the latest estimate for 2016).

Another issue from our letter to the First Minister that you also chose to disregard was this: “ ...it is noted that Tywyn as a community is viewed as being more remote than Blaenau Ffestiniog. In terms of accessibility, the Welsh Index of Deprivation scores Blaenau fairly well as it benefits from a train line, bus routes and good roads. This was an important factor taken into account by the Welsh Government when approving the Tywyn business case and also by the health board in its discussions with the community health council, culminating in the decision to retain the MIU in Tywyn.”

Are we honestly to believe that no-one in the Betsi or in Welsh Government know that Tywyn also has a train service? Or was the ignorance intentional by all involved because it served their argument for closing the Blaenau Memorial Hospital? And how false also was the argument regarding “bus routes and good roads”?

Permit me, finally, to respond to Cllr Morgan Vaughan’s ludicrous claim of ‘jealousy’ on our part and for implying that we have not fought ‘fairly’?

He knows full well that I have complimented him publicly on more than one occasion in the past for his successful campaign to save the Tywyn Memorial and that our argument has always been that both hospitals deserve similar consideration. Why would he object to that?

Yours etc,

Geraint V Jones, Ffestiniog.

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