Former Kirkcudbright Community Hospital Action Group chairman calls for robust campaign to save facility

A former Kirkcudbright Community Hospital Action Group chairman is calling for a more robust campaign to save the facility.

Ian McConchie is frustrated at what he sees as a lack of concerted effort by community councils to demand talks on its future.

The veteran campaigner co-ordinated a previous grassroots crusade to keep the hospital open and in 2011 it succeeded after a two-year battle.

Now Mr McConchie, of Hinton near Gatehouse, reckons similar perseverance is needed again if a similar outcome is to be achieved.

He said: “I’m disgusted at the lack of action. There should be a single action group rather than them writing letters separately.

“Thirteen years ago we got together representatives together from Kirkcudbright Hospital League of Friends and six community councils – Kirkcudbright, Borgue, Gatehouse, Auchencairn, Twynholm and Tongland and Ringford – there was a lot of a work went into it.

“We need these community councils to get off their backsides this time – they have done nothing.”

Mr McConchie added: “It’s up to the community councils – they have to stir things up and pull together to get the community behind them.

“They need to be calling a public meeting and invite the chairman and chief executive of NHS Dumfries and Galloway – and make sure they turn up.

“The Cochran Hall in Kirkcudbright would be ideal as a venue – it has a capacity of 400.

“At Newton Stewart the hospital campaigners there are working their backsides off at the moment. They got more than 200 at their public meeting – and I take my hat off to them.”

Mr McConchie’s call comes as the Newton Stewart Hospital Group continues to demand reopening the unit.

Health chiefs have not agreed to its requests for discussions and blanked last month’s packed meeting in the Riverside Centre.

Councillor Willie Scobie urged the health board to meet the group as part of a promised consultation process.

He said: “I remain of the view that the health board missed out in not attending the public meeting as it would have had the opportunity of speaking to more than 200 people.

“I still hold out hope they will sit down with the Newton Stewart Hospital Group to see what consultation there will be with the group.”

Meanwhile, more than 2,100 people have signed an online petition at change.org to reopen Newton Stewart Hospital.

And a separate petition by MSP Finlay Carson for better health services locally has accumulated, he says, more than 2,000 names.

Mr Carson said: “They [NHS Dumfries and Galloway] need to look forward and fully utilise the facilities that are available at the cottage hospitals at Castle Douglas, Kirkcudbright and Newton Stewart.”

Kirkcudbright and Newton Stewart hospitals have been closed to patients since the pandemic with services restricted to administration of Covid jags.

NHS Dumfries and Galloway is currently experiencing severe staffing difficulties amid unprecedented demand due in part to a resurgence of flu cases.

The health board has stated that reopening cottage hospitals at the moment would put pressure on staffing levels and lead to a reduction in care capacity.