Carstairs residents take their healthcare fight to Holyrood

As reported, a coachload of villagers staged a lobby of Holyrood as the Gazette went to press last week to leave MSPs and Scottish Government ministers in no doubt of their feelings over a threat to the survival of their long-established GP dispensary.

A campaign by villagers to persuade Lanarkshire Health Board to refuse permission for a private pharmacy chain in Lanark Road was unsuccessful.

The campaigners fear that the commercial competition will kill off the popular GP dispensary which has served them for many years, throwing its staff on the dole queue and possibly damaging other services provided by the local doctors’ practice, subsidised by the dispensary.

For more on this story pick up a copy of the Carluke and Lanark Gazette, which is in the shops now.