Public meeting for all – to discuss our GP services

ONCE again this week, matters regarding healthcare on the island are top of the agenda.

It is a matter of grave concern that two surgeries in Holyhead – Longford House and Cambria – have lost so many doctors that they have now been forced to come under the management of the Health Board.

Constituents say to me that they’ve been told there are no doctors there at all on some days and that the surgeries are manned by hard-working nurses and reception staff only. I’m told that when patients phone for appointments, in need of a doctor urgently in some cases, they are told to ‘phone back on another day. I’m also hearing of delays with the signing of prescriptions.

Workforce shortages are among the biggest problems facing our NHS. I’m proud that Plaid Cymru was successful in its campaign for a centre to train doctors at Bangor

University, training medics in areas like ours where we experience some of the greatest shortages. But it’ll be a number of years before we see the first qualified doctors coming through. We need action now to get primary care back on track in the Holyhead area.

I have written to the Health Board with urgency to express my concerns regarding this matter and called on them to deliver a specific timetable of when we can expect services to be restored to full capacity.

I’m very grateful to my constituents who have been in contact with me about this matter, but for anyone who wants to discuss the situation regarding GP services in Holyhead, I have arranged for a public meeting to take place at Millbank Community Centre in Holyhead this Friday evening at 6pm.

I will be chairing the meeting alongside our Plaid Cymru Parliamentary candidate for Ynys Môn, Aled ap Dafydd, and Plaid Cymru’s County Councillor for Ynys Cybi, Trefor Lloyd Hughes, and there is an invitation to all constituents to attend to share your concerns. I look forward to seeing you there.