KEEP Maidstone Hospital clean and do not take any more services away from it, was the clear message from the hundreds who attended a health rally in Maidstone.

Six resolutions were overwhelmingly carried at the Save Maidstone Hospital Rally, organised by the Kent Messenger and the Downs Mail, at Maidstone Leisure Centre on Monday night, leaving NHS bosses in no doubt what people wanted.

They were to make sure the highest hygiene standards are applied at all the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust hospitals, following the C-diff scandal, to keep a full A&E at Maidstone and scrap plans to move maternity services to Pembury Hospital.

The 300-strong audience also voted overwhelmingly for a Maidstone area health watch organisation to be set up under Kent County Council, which would involve one phone number to a Kent-based call centre, for people to report any health related concerns they have, that the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust be dissolved, and a motion calling for a specialist stroke unit at Maidstone Hospital was also carried.

The trust’s interim chief executive, Glenn Douglas, promised to listen to people’s concerns.

He revealed three non-executive directors of the trust had resigned and another two non-executives near to the end of their four year term, will leave the trust at the end of the month. Last night it was also revealed that two healthcare assistants at Maidstone Hospital have been sacked, following an investigation into standards of patient care at the hospital but the sackings were not related to patient care during the C-diff outbreaks.

After a minute’s silence for people who died after contracting C-diff, their relatives spoke out.

Brian Grant, whose mother-in-law, died after becoming ill with C-diff, said: "Senior managers took their eye off the ball about basic cleanliness with their obsession about providing a new hospital at Pembury."

Maidstone and the Weald MP Ann Widdecombe, added: "Management will need time to sort this out but we should be monitoring them closely to make sure this never happens again."

Controversial plans, now being considered by an independent panel, to move emergency and orthopaedic surgery to the Kent and Sussex Hospital, keeping general surgery at Maidstone, came under the spotlight.

A&E consultant, Akbar Soorma, told the rally: "Earlier this year I spoke out to say 60 lives a year could be at risk by this proposal. I have come under pressure to retract this statement but I will not as it is my duty to speak out."

Bob Bounds, senior editor of the Kent Messenger, who opened the rally, told the audience he never expected to write a headline about how 90 people died after getting C-diff at Maidstone and other hospitals run by the trust.

He added: "Both us and the Downs Mail felt it necessary for people to have their say and hear the views of people who know what they are talking about. This is a forum for change, not a political rally, or about posturing."

Mr Bounds also read extracts from a letter the newspaper had received from health secretary, Alan Johnson, who could not attend the meeting. Mr Johnson pledged in his letter to listen to what people in Maidstone were saying.

His letter added: "It is clear we all want the same thing - a safe, clean hospital, and everything possible done to reduce rates of infections."