A NORTH Wales politician is demanding clear answers over plans for the closure of H M Stanley Hospital in St Asaph.
Mark Isherwood is calling on health officials for clear answers, after he was contacted by concerned patients and carers.
Carers and patients have told the AM that “Care in the Community cannot cope with the patients it has now, the outpatients unit should stay open until suitable alternative accommodation is ready to move in to”.
The proposals, which involve transferring the eye, stroke and outpatient services elsewhere, could take effect as early as 2011.
Mr Isherwood, who set up Community Hospitals Acting Nationally Together (CHANT), is deeply concerned and angered by the move.
Shadow minister for social justice, equality and housing, Mr Isherwood has written to Mary Burrows, chief executive of Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board outlining these concerns.
Mr Isherwood said he was told that decisions by the health board last month to vacate the site come after a consultation process rolled out in 2006 gave the public a say on proposals to centralise health services across North Wales .
The board states: “The secondary care review ‘Designed for North Wales’ undertaken in 2007 recommended that H M Stanley Hospital was no longer fit for purpose and that services should be transferred.”
Mr Isherwood is threatening to resurrect CHANT to stop the closure of the hospital and says that the Royal College of Nursing Wales has “expressed its concern that primary and community health services require further investment by the Welsh Assembly Government.”
He said: “We need answers in 2010 to these questions then raised, rather than relying on an out of date consultation on grossly unpopular proposals several years ago.”