The local Member of the Senedd for Vale of Clwyd, Gareth Davies MS has made a fresh call for the construction of the North Denbighshire Community Hospital on the site of the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Rhyl following a visit to the existing facility recently, to check on the progress of the site with Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board.
North Denbighshire Community Hospital was initially planned to be constructed back in 2013 to introduce community health services including minor injuries, larger x-ray facilities, and local mental health services to the people of Rhyl, Prestatyn and surrounding areas, in a modern facility that would result in pressures and waiting times being relieved from Ysbyty Glan Clwyd in Bodelwyddan and improve patient flow through the introduction of thirty step down beds on the new site in Rhyl.
Commenting after the visit to the Royal Alexandra Hospital, Mr Davies said, “I’m grateful to the staff at Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board for showing me around the entire building and to see for myself the need for the construction of North Denbighshire Community Hospital in the area. We have had over a decade of delays and broken promises from the Welsh Government who have still not delivered on their priorities in providing community health services to local people who desperately need local services as the current system is unsustainable.”
Mr Davies who worked on the frontline in Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board for eleven years saw first hand the consequence of such delays in his time in the NHS and went onto say, “when I worked in physiotherapy on the community wards, I was caring for patients in Llandudno who were from Rhyl, Prestatyn, Kinmel Bay and Towyn and sometimes as far as Flintshire, all because there is no community facility in North Denbighshire. On numerous occasions I spoke to patient’s families on the telephone who couldn’t visit their loved ones in hospital and were in tears because the journey to see them was too far away leaving my patients feeling detached and isolated, that is the reality of the situation and it does no favours for the quality of patient recovery. It is vital that the Welsh Government finally ‘grasp the nettle’ on this matter and deliver on their promises in providing local community healthcare to people in North Denbighshire. Local people have been badly let down are at the end of their tether and have had enough of the excuses and the lack of tangible progress on the site and need answers to why their facility remains unestablished.”
Mr Davies has vowed to carry on lobbying the Welsh Government to deliver North Denbighshire Community Hospital in saying, “I will continue to fight for local people in the Senedd to Ministers in Cardiff Bay, who quite often forget where North Wales is.”
