* Wales's new health minister led the campaign to save Llangollen Cottage Hospital back in 2012.
The man who spearheaded the campaign to save Llangollen's much-loved Cottage Hospital has just become Wales's new health minister.
llanblogger readers may recall that back in September 2012 Mabon Ap Gwynfor from Corwen, who was then a Plaid Cyrmu activist, called a public meeting at the Hand Hotel to form an action group to safeguard health services in Llangollen and halt controversial proposals by the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board which included closing the Cottage Hospital and replacing it with a new primary care health centre elsewhere in the town.
According to our report at the time, members of the new Keep Llangollen Health Services (KLHS) group were deeply worried the new facility would take years to complete and would not include the in-patient beds or minor injuries unit currently offered by the hospital on Abbey Road.
* Mabon Ap Gwynfor, at the microphone, speaks at the 2012 Hand Hotel public meeting called to prevent the closure of Llangollen Cottage Hospital.
Despite some hard campaigning and lobbying by KLHS, the hospital did eventually close two years later to be replaced by housing and the health board pressed ahead with a £5 million scheme to build a new health centre further along the A539 on the site of the demolished River Lodge in Mill Street.
To date, no in-patient beds or minor injuries unit have ever been provided although there are often demands from the public for these to be included in the health centre.
Mabon Ap Gwynfor, who went on to become a Denbighshire county councillor then a Senedd Member, is now one of the most important figures in the newly-formed Plaid Cymru government with 55% of the day-to-day Welsh budget being spent on the health service.
His appointment was announced yesterday (Wednesday) as First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth revealed his ministerial team in Wales' first ever Plaid Cymru government.
llanblogger reckons it would be interesting to have the new minister's views on whether Llangollen Health Centre could be further developed to provide the lost services. We have therefore emailed him to ask and will let you know his response.
No comments:
Post a Comment