AT least two attempts that I am aware of, have been made in recent years to de-nationalise our local Forest of Dean hospitals and residents have rebuffed them. 

During one protest, when it was proposed to privatise all small hospitals in the county, well over 7,000 people signed a petition against the plan and it was presented to the then Primary Care Trust — now called the Clinical Commissioning Group — who then changed their plans, only to do the same thing in another way.

Presently there are discussions taking place to close one of the two Forest hospitals completely and set-up a ‘super surgery’, whatever that entails.  

No mention of a 24-hour A&E or anything like that. Will it be run by a private company, I wonder? Making huge profits out of other people’s misfortunes. 

It’s a profitable business and companies are lining-up to pocket your hard-earned cash. 

The NHS who employ them by way of CCGs etc, will tell you that healthcare will be “free at the point of need” – I have to add, for how long? How do these firms get the contracts? 

But if we are to get our treatments free at the point of need why should we bother? Surely the NHS wouldn’t be silly enough to pay them more money to do the same job?  How are we to know? 

Contracts for the work are commercially secret and we are in no way allowed to know the details. 

A number of private health contracts in this country have failed, leaving the NHS to clear-up the mess at your expense and sometimes, to the detriment of the patient.   

How can they do the work at the same price as the NHS has been doing and still make a profit?

Sack half the staff, make the remaining ones work harder — we are already hearing of worn out nurses, doctors, and ancillary staff, a very dangerous situation — longer waits for treatment, cut down on essential supplies etc, and make cuts in whatever way they can   

Keep salary increases down to one per cent as they have been for the last few years, when the cost of living continues above that figure, causing, in some cases, staff to qualify for foodbank issues after doing a full week’s work.

I don’t know if a decision has yet been made on which one they may close but I do believe that it won’t be only me complaining. 

Firstly, the Dilke was largely paid for by miners many years ago, out of their hard-earned wages, doing dangerous and extremely unhealthy work.

What will be done with that? Pay back descendants of those miners?

I doubt it because it would be too difficult to trace many of them.  Turn the buildings into a community centre or pull them down and squander the proceeds, turn the ground into a park far away from local residents, or run roughshod over the wants and needs of local people and sell the ground for housing?   

Would the planners agree to that in the middle of the Forest?

What of Lydney Hospital? Well, as an incomer – only 39 years – I don’t know where the most of the money to build it came from, though I can guess that it was provided by either Lord Bledisloe or the Watts family.

I do know, however, that considerable sums of local money have been spent on the place by local and other people by way of the Friends of Lydney Hospital.   

Both these hospitals have recently had considerable sums of money spent upon them, presumably to upgrade them to modern standards as much as possible.

Then there’s the question of where present patients will be put?   

There is a disgraceful lack of care beds in this country already, due to the disastrous cuts being carried out by successive governments. We need more not less.

It is already a disgrace that, in one of the richest countries in the world, there is such a pathetic lack of provision of accommodation for people who are no longer capable of looking after themselves. Even those who are able to pay have to do so at unbelievably high costs.

Then I query the suggestion that a public consultation will take place. 

In the case of the protest I mentioned earlier, the so-called public consultation was merely stationing a caravan in various places around the county without much encouragement for people to air their views. Due to this the response was poor. 

There should be well-advertised public meetings for everyone to make their feelings known, around the area and at times and places convenient to everyone in our not-too-small district.   

If this is considered too expensive, then I ask how much more expensive will be their proposals?

— Claude Mickleson, Lydney.