Insch community look to save hospital
Work at the unit was suspended a year ago due to the pandemic, some residents fear it'll never open again - they've started the 'Have a Heart' campaign.
The Friends of Insch Hospital have started a campaign to save the medical unit.
The 'Have a Heart' campaign looks to show the importance of the hospital in the community.
Operations at the building were suspended at the beginning of the pandemic, a year ago last week, but there's been no sign of a re-opening.
Last week the group decorated the hospital with hearts to show their love for the building which was originally built with community sourced funding in the 1920's.
Allison Grant from the group told Northsound the hospital is "hugely significant" to the community.
She said:
"Our patient population is not a tiny little community, everybody hears Insch and they think 'oh tiny little Insch' but it's not
"We have a patient population of 6,600"
She said that a permanent closure would mean "no palliative beds, it would mean patients who are dying would have to go to Huntly or Inverurie."
"If there's not beds there then they'd have to go to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary - which has happened repeatedly throughout this last year."
Geraldine Fraser, from the Aberdeenshire health and social care partnership told us:
“In March of last year we took the difficult decision to suspend use of Insch Memorial Hospital for the duration of the pandemic. This was done to allow us to consolidate our resources and that continues to be our position.
“Prior to the onset of COVID-19, work had begun to review the provision of health & social care services in the Insch area, including the use of the hospital site. We hope to be able to pick that work up with the Insch community in the near future”
But Grant told Northsound further reviews feels like "back to square one" for the community.
Saying: "We believe this is a really big waste of officers time, and of NHS Grampian's funds, we've done all of this
"So we don't really need to be going to do that all over again."