Campaigners step up fight to save Ludlow Hospital
Councillors, campaigners, residents and groups will come together to make the case for saving services at Ludlow Hospital.
The meeting on the future of the hospital will be chaired by the town’s mayor Tim Gill on November 9.
MP for Ludlow Philip Dunne will attend the meeting, which will have a number of local speakers.
It comes after a review into community care in Shropshire was launched by Shropshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).
The review will look at the county’s four minor injury units (MIUs) in Oswestry, Bridgnorth, Ludlow and Whitchurch.
A new Save Ludlow Hospital “coalition” has been formed, bringing together Ludlow Hospital League of Friends, Shropshire Defend Our NHS, councillors and residents.
Health campaigner Gill George said: “This is about unity, and sending a strong and powerful message to NHS decision makers.
“We’re aiming here to bring together our whole community. We all need our hospital, and Ludlow has to speak with one voice on this.
“The cuts would be catastrophic on their own – but their implementation would make the whole hospital unviable.
“That would mean the loss of local renal dialysis, of Ludlow’s X-ray service, and of consultant-led clinics from Hereford or Shrewsbury Hospitals. Even services like physiotherapy and podiatry would go unless a new home could be found for them. Shropshire CCG leaders are forgetting that Shrewsbury is not ‘local’ for people living 30 miles away in Ludlow, or in the smaller communities in South Shropshire.”
Shropshire CCG’s engagement period on community hospital cuts ends on November 10.
Meanwhile, a petition to save the services at Ludlow hospital has gained more than 300 signatures. The intention of the public meeting is to send a message to the CCG that Ludlow residents will fight for the hospital. The meeting is at 7pm at the Methodist Church, Broad Street, Ludlow.
