CAMPAIGNERS fighting Haslar Hospital's closure today urged Prime Minister Tony Blair: "Please keep your promise to us.''

It follows the PM's vow to sort out the future of the threatened hospital during a visit to Hampshire yesterday.

Alverstoke resident Captain John Parry collared Mr Blair when staging a protest outside a Portsmouth youth centre being visited by the premier.

Capt Parry told him to "do something to stop a catastrophe unfolding".

Mr Blair promised to intervene when he visited the city on a Euro election tour yesterday - a day after the MoD announced proposals to close the hospital's paediatric unit in August.

He said he would get the MoD and the NHS talking over the future of Haslar hospital, Gosport. Mr Blair told Capt Parry: "I'll knock heads together.''

Today Capt Parry told the Echo: "This is a step in the right direction. The situation needs to be sorted out as soon as possible. Now we must hope that the prime minister keeps his promise to the people of this area.''

Gosport's Tory MP, Peter Viggers, was also delighted by Mr Blair's pledge and will use it to apply pressure to the two ministers, George Robertson and Frank Dobson.

The Department of Health has confirmed that it has received about 1,500 letters from campaigners against the Haslar closure plan.

"If the prime minister has urged the two government departments to talk to each other and consider a solution, I very much welcome that," said Mr Viggers. "I shall phone their offices today to find out when that meeting is.

"What we have needed for Haslar is for the secretaries of state for health and for defence to have a co-ordinated approach."

The news has encouraged leading campaigner Peter Edgar. "This is very good. It puts the PM on the spot and suggests that he is being fairly open-minded about it,'' he said today.

The tri-service hospital is due to close next year and facilities to be transferred to Queen Alexandra Hospital, Cosham, which will also have a new defence medical block there as well.

But protesters fighting to keep Haslar open believe moves are afoot to wind the hospital down, especially with the paediatric unit's closure.

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