Highland MSP Kate Forbes has said she will join a mass protest by constituents who have reacted furiously to further delays to a new hospital already overdue by 25 years.
Health boards have been told by the Scottish Government that no money is available for new construction projects for two years.
The freeze will delay plans to replace the crumbling and 'functionally unsuitable' Belford Hospital in Fort William, which was expected to be replaced by 2002 and is Scotland's busiest rural general.
Plans for the new £160 million hospital are at an advanced stage, with preparatory ground works carried out at the site, which was purchased nine years ago.
Work is also progressing on the full business case, which is due to be submitted by October and NHS Highland was preparing to release 'first look' images to the media in December.
A day of action is planned in Fort William on March 16. The last time a mass protest was held over plans to downgrade the hospital in 2003, removing emergency services, more than 2000 people turned up.
Kate Forbes SNP MSP for Lochaber, Skye and Badenoch, has said she will join the marchers.
The politician has been praised by local activists for her efforts to progress the long-awaited rebuild.
She said: “The people of Lochaber have waited 25 years for a new hospital, since it was first promised in the 90s.
"Over the last couple of years, progress has finally accelerated with extensive support for new plans.
“To suspend planning and design work now, after such progress, would waste years of finance, work and energy.
"I will be marching alongside the local communities and I hope this will demonstrate the strength of feeling on why NHS Highland must proceed with the planning and design.
"This is the only way to maintain momentum, preserve community support and keep the hope alive that we will one day see a new Belford."
READ MORE:
'I know I'm part of the problem - this is why I left the Highlands'
'The new Highland Clearances - the full list of articles'
Tourism push in 'forgotten' Highland village 'aggressive and unfair'
She said it was encouraging that the new Health Secretary Neil Gray had "acknowledged the merit" in progressing with plans.
NHS Highland has said it intends to proceed with initial designs, which will take the project to Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Stage 2.
A spokeswoman said: "Thereafter, development work will be paused, though we will continue working to produce the Outline Business Case in-house in order to be ready to pick up the project again as soon as capital funding resumes."
However, former Highland council leader and GP Michael Foxley, part of a stakeholders group, has written an open letter to Mr Gray, politicians and NHS Highland calling for the plan to be advanced beyond this stage.
He writes: "The news from the SG that further detailed work by NHSH was to stop came as a huge shock.
"Further design work must continue to take the project to RIBA Stage 3, which will allow discussions to start with the planners in April, as we were advised by the architects at the December meeting.
"We want NHSH to be funded by the Scottish Government to continue with external consultants to allow the Outline Business Case to be completed by October as scheduled."
"We want the Cab Sec for Health to authorize NHSH to continue this work to get to that sensible stage."
In an exclusive interview with The Herald in Fort William last month, clinical lead Dr Steve Gilbert, said staff morale had "taken a big hit".
He said most people would be surprised to see the hospital's "tiny A&E waiting room and handful of emergency cubicles" given the volume of patients it sees.
The 34-bed hospital deals with around 10,000 A&E cases a year, including mountain and road accidents on the A82 as well as routine emergencies including heart attacks and strokes. Numbers spike during the Summer months when there is a huge influx of tourists.
"We want to be able to offer the same care as a hospital in Glasgow," said Dr Gilbert, who is also a consultant in anaesthetics and pain medicine.
"We've got to nearly the end of planning the new hospital and so it was a massive blow that the Government said there is no money left."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel