Eluned Morgan’s postbag must be very different to mine. In the Cambrian News (16 July), she seemed to give an impression that Ceredigion and mid Wales was an oasis of healthcare. There seemed to be very few challenges for staff or patients within our NHS. My postbag paints a different picture. The people who write to me tell me of a continuing inability to access an NHS dentist, of having to travel further for basic hospital appointments and scans, of waiting dangerously long hours for an ambulance, and of family members stuck in hospital beds due to insufficient carers and care packages.

Eluned’s positive spin on the closure of Welshpool and Caernarfon air ambulance bases is also very different to my view. I remain concerned that people in mid Wales will have deteriorating access to air ambulance services as a result of these closures. And Eluned’s silence on the proposed removal of stroke services from Bronglais is staggeringly deafening.

Eluned Morgan and I will be standing against each other in next year’s Senedd election in the new constituency of Ceredigion~Penfro – she is top of the Labour list and I am top of the Plaid list. As such, I’ll be responding to the Health Board’s Clinical Services consultation on hospital services in our area. I wonder whether Eluned will? The people are responding in droves to the consultation, their politicians also need to respond and show leadership. This is the most significant reconfiguration proposal for hospital services affecting mid and west Wales in a generation – and it was not mentioned by Eluned in her rose-tinted portrayal of healthcare in our area.

Eluned reminded us last week that she has represented the area since 2016. Her corporate memory does not go back as far as mine. I’ve been elected by this area since 1999, and around for much longer.

To be fair, Eluned may be totally unaware of the last major fight for hospital services at Bronglais, exactly 20 years ago. Many of us were out on the streets, on the steps of the Senedd, in large public meetings back in 2005 when the proposal at the time was to downgrade A&E, emergency surgery and maternity services at Bronglais. Along drawn out campaign followed leading ultimately to the Marcus Longley Report commissioned by the Health Minister at the time.

That moment felt like a line in the sand - a final recognition by Welsh Government,independent analysis and Health Boards that an area the size of the Bronglais catchment needs a fully-functioning district general hospital, planned for strategically by all 3 mid Wales health boards – and that a hospital functioning in that way needs a particular breadth of services to attract the full complement of staff and expertise and to serve the local population.

Crucially Bronglais needs to be modelled in such a way that recognises that the numbers coming through the door of a rural hospital are always slower than an urban area – and that services need to be designed in a more bespoke way. A one size fits all model cannot work for a rural area.

The Health Board is now proposing a ‘treat and transfer’ model for stroke services in mid Wales – emergency treatment at Bronglais, Glangwili and possibly Withybush, then immediate transfer to Llanelli for further medical and rehab services. The distance door-to-door between Bronglais and Llanelli is 1 hour 45 minutes. The access to ambulance transfer and beds will be even more challenging for stroke patients from mid Wales.

It is the lived experience of people in this area that often when patients are waiting for transfer from Bronglais for expert treatment in Glangwili or Morriston – they may be delayed for weeks in a bed in Bronglais waiting for the availability of a bed or ambulance. Unbelieveably, there is no detailed, dedicated plan for ambulance transfer of stroke patients in this Health Board consultation. Without it, there is no hope that we can trust a ‘treat and transfer’ model. All experience and evidence is that a transfer model treats us as second-class citizens.

I understand that the Health Board is as its mid-point review of the consultation. It should use this point to pull the Bronglais stroke plan from the Clinical Services Review. It is not fit for purpose, even for a consultation.

My last word goes to health and care staff - those in our hospitals, GP practices, pharmacies, care homes and the community. I speak to them regularly in local shops and streets. I use their services. They all do incredible work, under significant pressure. They need politicians who are realistic about the challenges in delivering healthcare in a rural area, but committed to designing services that recognise the challenges of distance,recruitment and resource.

Eluned, you say mid and west Wales is not a healthcare desert, I say, it’s no oasis either.

Elin Jones is the MS for Ceredigion.