Thousand letters oppose closure of Newport care home (From South Wales Argus)

Thousand letters oppose closure of Newport care home

1:10pm Wednesday 13th February 2013 in News

FAMILIES of elderly residents who could be forced to leave a Newport care home have handed over more than 1,000 letters opposing its closure.

Patients with dementia and those who cannot live independently would have to leave Hillside Care Home and Resource Centre in the Gaer if council plans to close the home go ahead.

Newport council has said the facility, as well as music services, leisure centres and other organisations across Newport, could close as it attempts to make around £7 million in savings.

Consultation on the plans ends today.

Closing the home would be “devastating” for 86-year-old resident Betty Roberts, explained her niece, Jacqui Ford, who along with a small committee team has placed template letters in pubs, shops and doctors’ surgeries for people to fill in and send to the council.

“My aunt says she is happy as a bird at Hillside and has made lots of friends,” Mrs Ford told the Argus after a public meeting last month.

“If my aunt was to move she would be devastated.”

Mrs Ford said that after last month’s meeting Gaer councillors went to look round the home.

“We have forced the councillors to look at this whole position much more carefully,”

she said.

Staff at the Gaer Inn have been handing out template letters opposing the home’s closure at a rate of 30 per hour, said Mrs Ford, while the Alcan Club in Rogerstone, the Handpost pub on Stow Hill, a nearby doctors’ surgery, Spar, the Gaer Christian Centre and slimmers’ groups have also taken stacks of letters.

Unison Wales is to join the SOS Newport campaign when it assembles at Newport Civic Centre this morning.

Peter Short, regional organiser, said Newport council cuts are going to have a “devastating effect”

on the local community, and said the current proposals are “simply not the solution to their budget challenge”.

He said: Cutting these services will not only leave many workers without a job, but will take services away from those who need them.”