WHAT on Earth is whoever is running Hywel Dda Health Board thinking of ? Options considered are either to strip Pembrokeshire of its hospital entirely or Withybush of its A&E department. Neither should be given a second thought. There are too many cons to outweigh the pros on this, I’m afraid. Pembrokeshire is too big a county not to have its own hospital, with or without an A&E department, maternity department etc. Then there’s all that money put into the renal ward. Flushed down the drain, then? Given the distance from one end of our county to the next, Carmarthenshire, a heart attack victim or serious RTA victim/s wouldn’t stand a chance. South Hook and Dragon LNG, lets hope there isn’t a major accident there. No good looking to Mr Carwyn Jones and his cronies at the Assembly, because that lot have already said they aren’t going to intervene. As long as Cardiff and surrounding area is looked after, that’s all they care about. So back to the possible closure of Withybush. We have had too many incidents of where the main route out of Haverfordwest is closed due to an RTA and the bridge is closed due to severe winds. You can’t get out. Heaven forbid you take ill and desperately need to get to hospital should that happen again. They say they can’t fill some staff places in the NHS? Well, they won’t from now at Withybush, will they? People won’t want to come here because they will either have to transfer to another county or seek an alternative career. I suppose we could make a zillion protests, but l don’t think that would make a lot of difference. After all Mark Drakeford started this mess by scrapping maternity and paediatric services and protests didn’t help then. What we do need is for these administrators to see that there will be a lot of blood on their hands. Cut the pay at the top for a start – or better still, step aside and make room for people who care about our vital services etc. I can’t see the war on this one being short lived.

DAVID BUTLER

Haverfordwest