DOCTORS fear that a pit of poison could be opened up beside their health centre if Rutherglen Maternity Hospital is sold for redevelopment, writes Alan MacDermid.

Now they want the hospital handed over to them so that they can use it for their practices and other community health services, including ante-natal care.

Greater Glasgow Health Board is expected today to accelerate the closure of the hospital, which was due to shut in 2001 when the replacement for the Royal Maternity Hospital opens.

If the board so decides and gets the approval of the Secretary of State, the hospital could be closed within six months.

Dr Colin Barrett heads a bid by the 19 GPs in the adjoining Rutherglen Health Centre who are interested in taking over the hospital. He said yesterday that their first priority was to save the hospital from early closure.

But he said: ''If it is going to close, then taking it over might be an ideal solution for us. We are still examining the feasibility, but the health centre is 20 years old, and when it was built it wasn't designed for five practices serving 42,000 patients.

''We get our heating directly from the hospital, and we have already had to decant our health visitors, district nurses and chiropodists to spare accommodation in the hospital because of the cramped conditions here.

''So we will have real problems if the hospital closes. It is also a matter of concern that the ground here is polluted with toxic chromium dioxide, so if the site was sold, say, for a supermarket, there is the worry about the ground being disturbed and contaminating our premises.''

The practices are all community fund-holders - the lowest level of fund-holding giving them control only over nursing and prescribing budgets - but Dr Barrett denied that he and his colleagues wanted to set up a private facility in the hospital.

''That is no part of our plans,'' he said. ''We want to provide NHS services free at the point of delivery. We are looking at the possibility of bringing in other community health services, including pharmacy and ophthalmics, and it would be an ideal place to provide local ante-natal care.''

The GPs' scheme depends on the costs - Dr Barrett said they hoped to lease the premises on the same basis as they do the health centre - with the Community and Mental Health Services Trust responsible for the upkeep.

''We might look at raising the capital to buy it, but even if we were handed it for next-to-nothing, it might turn out that the maintenance costs would make the whole thing a non-starter. All this has to be gone into.''

Mr Laurence Peterken, former chief executive of the health board, is acting as consultant to the GPs. He said: ''Rutherglen Maternity is extremely modern. It is one of the newest hospitals in Glasgow. There are lots of community services which could be provided there. The health board will have to find new premises anyway to provide out-patient ante-natal care.''

One of the reasons given for bringing the closure forward was to use the cost-saving to shore up the Victoria Infirmary after it ran up a #2m deficit.

However, the board also says that the birth rate in Glasgow has fallen dramatically, and it wants to reduce the pressure on medical staff from covering four sites, make better use of its resources and implement more quickly the current policy of housing maternity units on general hospital sites. But it will mean expectant mothers having to go instead to the Southern General and the Royal Maternity, which will have to create more room.

The public service union Unison will present a petition to the health board today calling on the board to keep Rutherglen open, at least until alternative provision has been made.