Gartcosh move is potential disaster

Dear Editor, I was dismayed to hear that Gartcosh is the preferred site for a new Monklands Hospital.

Now I realise that you’re not going to keep everybody happy wherever the hospital is situated, but this would be such a big change it’s hard to know what the decision-makers were thinking when they came up with it.

It’s not even as if they would be moving the hospital into anything like the centre of Coatbridge; Gartcosh is a fair distance from there, and a very difficult place for people living in Airdrie to get to.

The current location of Monklands Hospital may not be ideal, but at least it’s not far from Airdrie town centre, is relatively close to Coatbridge and easy enough to reach by public transport.

There are thousands of people who have been using the hospital for years – and in many cases decades – and to now potentially expect them to make their way over to Gartcosh is going to cause massive upheaval.

I am only in my 40s and it would prove challenging for me, never mind the many pensioners who rely on the hospital being at its current site.

You also have the potentially frightening issue of how people are going to be “rushed” by ambulance such a large distance, compared to what it would be like being taken to the hospital just now.

I really hope the decision-makers have a long hard think, go back to the drawing board and come up with a better solution, as moving the hospital to Gartcosh has got disaster written all over it.

Mary Paterson, Airdrie, via email