MEMBERS of the Friends of Ross Community Hospital spent last Saturday gathering signatures on a petition calling for the decision to take away 24 hour cover at the Minor Injuries Unit in Ross to be rescinded and a consultation started.

The Friends were in the Market Place on Saturday, October 13th and intend to be there again on Saturday October 20th. They have also placed several copies of the petition in shops around the town and have collected several hundred signatures already.

A Public Meeting has been organised by Ross Town Council for October 30th at the Larruperz Centre, the time and the details of the panel of speakers will be announced in next week's paper.

The panel will include representatives from various sections of the NHS including the local doctors' surgeries. They will address the meeting and this will be followed by a Question and Answer session.

One of the members will be Peter Wilson, Medical Director of the Wye Valley NHS Trust, who took the original decision to shorten the opening hours at the MIU in Ross. He contacted the Ross Gazette this week to explain in more detail the reasons behind the Trust's actions.

He said it was a "purely clinical decision" and was not about saving money. He said that the Trust was not trying to take things away from the community, and if it had been just about saving money the decision process would have involved a lengthy period of consultation.

He said he was hopeful that the actions he had taken would spark a public debate about the future of emergency care in the county.

For the rest of this story please see this week's Ross Gazette.

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