They came in wheelchairs, on crutches, bandaged, broken and bloody and as the cameras rolled the community played its part in the next phase of the fight to save Pambula Hospital that will see four or five advertisements made and put to air early in 2010.

Under the direction of Frankie J Holden and other members of the Save Pambula Hospital Action Group, the community marched along Narregol Street, Pambula, Sunday, November 15, to meet the “vicious bureaucrat” played by Don Peterson, who was stopping them reaching the medical services they needed.

Earlier in the day various accident scenarios had been set up and filmed by local professional cameramen who are donating their time.

Mr Holden said: “It was a total success because it showed, still, the extent that the public want to be involved in this fight. It’s 12 months since the last march but the community has lost none of its willingness.”

He said he thought somewhere between 1,000 and 3,000 people had turned out for the event.

The film footage will be turned into four or five commercials, Mr Holden said, which will appear on WIN television.

He said that the action group had raised money that would be used for the cost of the airtime on WIN but that the television company was also matching the cost, to help the group make a bigger impact.

Ultimately Mr Holden hopes that money can be raised to see the commercials go out to metropolitan stations to “put it in the laps of our bureaucrats and politicians”.

In the meantime though it is hoped that the initial round of advertisements will generate interest from other news organisations.

“There are broader issues here because this is happening elsewhere in rural health,” Mr Holden said.

Member for Bega, Andrew Constance, was at the march on Sunday and said that it sent a message to Carmel Tebbutt (NSW Health Minister) to get in and fix Pambula Hospital.

Mr Constance said that both he and Shadow Health Minister, Jillian Skinner, had asked questions in Parliament last week, pressing Ms Tebbutt to give a response to the action group following their meeting with her, Wednesday, November 4.

“We want to keep the pressure on; she has an obligation to respond by the end of this week,” Mr Constance said.

The action group hopes to hold a screening night at the cinema in the “not too distant future” which would be a fun night and allow the community to see some of the footage as well as the out-takes.