WATCH: "I'm not going to resign" says NHS Highland Chair

NHS Highland's top boss says he's going nowhere, after 3,000-protesters appeared to back calls from local politicians to make way for fresh blood.

The demonstrators had gathered on Saturday at rallies in Wick and Thurso, where it's feared that the Town and County Hospital, and The Dunbar may shut.

It's part of an ongoing NHS review, which officials claim has not yet reached a decision on the facilities' futures, but tensions are rising between the potentially affected communities and the health board.

The SNP's Gail Ross - MSP for Caithness, Sutherland and Ross - told our reporter Bryan Rutherford, who was at Saturday's marches: "We've been talking to NHS Highland for years about their communication strategy, about letting people know what they're doing, when they're doing it, and why they're doing it, and they are still not talking to communities, and it's not good enough.

"It creates fear and anxiety, and with our health services that is the last thing we need."

Ms. Ross, who was heckled by audiences as she appeared on the panel at both public meetings, was also under pressure to explain her previous support for the downgrading of the local maternity unit at Caithness General Hospital.

In what seemed like an emotional outpouring, she said: "I don't want people to travel 100-miles for anything, but when the decision came to me, a baby had died because of the old model at Caithness General.

"I just wish, and hope that people realise the decisions that I make are decisions that are on my conscience, and they're not easy decisions at all."

The current Community Midwives Unit is without the necessary doctors locally, meaning first time mums and complicated pregnancies have had to travel all over the country to give birth - some of them strapped down in the back of an ambulance for hours while in labour, in a vehicle potentially speeding along Scotland's so-called most dangerous road.

Gill Arrowsmith from Thurso revealed how her daughter-in-law had to travel 240-miles to give birth. She told MFR News: "My son and his partner were expecting their first baby.

"She went into premature labour six-weeks early, and she was put in an ambulance to Raigmore in labour.

"They arrived to be told there were no premature beds, and they'd either have to go to Edinburgh, Glasgow, or Dundee.

"At one o'clock in the morning my son phoned to say: 'Mum, it's Aberdeen.'

"So they arrived at five o'clock in the morning, and five-days later they have the baby.

"We cannot fault the neonatal unit in Aberdeen, all the nurses, everybody at the ARI, but why is it not all within Caithness?

"Nobody should have to go through it. It should be that Caithness General has it all, nobody has to worry, you're with family - 240-miles away from home is too far away."

Local politicians, including LibDem MP Jamie Stone, Labour MSP Rhoda Grant, and Conservative MSP Edward Mountain were also sat on stages to deliver speeches and take questions from members of the public.

Edward Mountain told MFR News: "I have called in the past for the resignation of the Cabinet Secretary for Health, and I've also called for the resignation of the Highland health board.

"I don't think they've got a grip of it."

We put the SNP and Tory MSPs' comments to David Alston who replied: "I am not going to resign.

"The fact that we have demonstrations - people expressing their concern - is a mark of how much they care about the NHS, and I think we mustn't lose sight of that fact.

"The future of the NHS depends on us not trying to operate models from the past, but finding models that will work for the future.

"I think what's really disappointing here, is the way in which health issues become a political football."

The rallies which pressured Mr Alston's authority into giving an interview to MFR News were planned and promoted by protest group Caithness Health Action Team whose members had also gathered in support of a candlelit vigil outside Wick Town and County Hospital last week Thursday.

That event attracted around 1,000-people whose candles and lights could be spotted from a drone flying overhead.

Days later support for further campaign action tripled in its size, with 3,000-people filling halls to grill local representatives on their respective positions on the centralisation of NHS services to, mostly Raigmore Hospital in Inverness.

A spokesperson for the health board said: "While no decisions have been made, the main thrust of the review...is to have less reliance on hospital beds...NHS Highland has made no secret that current staffing pressures...are presenting challenges that may potentially have an impact on its services."

It's understood that the earliest any decision could be made is next month.