Town residents are coming together to fight for the Minor Injuries Unit at Ross Hospital to be re-opened as soon as possible and to protect it for the future.

Many residents have signed a petition started by Town Councillors Chris Bartrum and Paul Symonds. So far 1,287 people have signed the petition online at goo.gl/9c3FZg An additional 524 have signed paper copies of the petition, making a total of 1,811.

The Councillors told the Ross Gazette: “This is a magnificent response, but we need thousands more signatures if we are to protect our health services in Ross. If you haven’t signed yet, please go to the above link and do so. We are also going door to door in the town or you can sign a paper copy of the petition at the Ross Gazette office.”

Councillors voted to send a letter to the Chief Executive of the Wye Valley NHS Trust and MP Jesse Norman regarding the five month closure of the Ross Minor Injuries Unit at the Town Council Meeting on Monday, December 10th.

The letter initially used the word ‘demand’, but this was changed to ‘strongly request’ following Councillor Jenny Hyde’s suggestion that the Town Council’s requests should always remain ‘polite’.

Councillor Paul Symonds said: “When I drafted the letter, I thought long and hard about the terminology, I decided that it needed more than just ‘request’, it needed something stronger.”

The Town Council voted to change the terminology, before voting unanimously to send the letter on to MP Jesse Norman and the Chief Executive of the Wye Valley NHS Trust.

Councillor Daniel Lister expressed concerns about moving the staff from the Minor Injuries Unit to Hereford County Hospital. He said: “It has been suggested that the move is to help alleviate the pressure on the Accident and Emergency (A&E) department at Hereford. However, the members of staff being moved are not specialists in A&E, their field is Minor Injuries.”

Councillor Julian Utting said: “I am concerned that the Wye Valley NHS Trust took this decision in the summer, and this Town Council was not consulted.

“I think it’s the Wye Valley NHS Trust’s ambition to remove the MIU from Ross, which I think is very damaging.”

In response to some councillors’ fears that the temporary closure may be pre-emptive of a permanent closure, Councillor Harry Bramer said: “I think our MP would rather change his political allegiance than have it close forever.”You can sign the paper petition by coming into the Ross Gazette office. There are no petitions at Ross Hospital.