There is a sense of déjà vu with the current goings-on. In the early 1960’s the medics and the people of Pembrokeshire campaigned relentlessly to persuade the Welsh Hospital Board to agree to build a new hospital at Withybush. They finally agreed in 1964. But the fight was only just beginning, because the Board wanted only a ‘support’, or cottage-type one.

It took a tragedy to persuade the Ministry of Health otherwise and the Welsh Board was instructed to change their plans. In late 1970 two men died following the collapse of the Cleddau bridge, then under construction. The Coroner, Mr J Johnson, broke with tradition in addressing his remarks to the Press. “To send sick and badly injured people on the difficult journey to Carmarthen especially in the summer months when as most of us know, the roads are impassable, is the height of irresponsible folly”. His words are as true now as then.

Finally in 1978 Withybush was opened. Our fight has never stopped. The services at Withybush, and the way we provide them, have been constantly upgraded till the present day, and with the help of the people of Pembrokeshire, we will continue relentlessly to seek new ways of improving them.

The politicians tell us that ‘the status quo is not an option’. Well, for Withybush it never has been and never will be. The medics and the people of Pembrokeshire will never allow what they have fought for to be taken away from them.