IT is a great privilege to represent West Scotland in the Scottish Parliament, serving towns and villages from Glasgow’s edge to the Clyde coast, including Greenock and Inverclyde.

I like to talk directly to the people I represent and one of the best ways to do that when working across such a vast and varied region is through dependable local newspapers.

The Greenock Telegraph is certainly that and I am delighted to be contributing my first column to the paper today.

Rooted in the community, the Tele is more than a source of local news and opinion.

It is a proven, trusted, respected campaigning paper.

Over the years, the Tele has teamed up with people in Inverclyde to push for action on knife crime, to press to change the law on animal welfare and to act almost as a watchdog for the patients who depend on Inverclyde Royal Hospital.

All of this hasn’t been lost on me, or lost on the paper’s loyal readership.

The future of the IRH and the health board’s plans to downgrade local services has taken up much of my time recently.

It’s just over a year since Nicola Sturgeon herself promised that there were ‘no plans to centralise services out of Inverclyde’ yet now we know birthing services are indeed to be centralised.

The petition protesting against the closure of the local birthing unit has already reached 5,000 signatures – and it’s growing fast.

Last week the maternity unit at the Queen Elizabeth reached capacity and pregnant women were turned away. It seems the biggest hospital in Scotland cannot cope with current levels of demand. That’s just one of the reasons why I believe it would be completely wrong to close the IRH facility.

Parents-to-be in Inverclyde deserve a properly-resourced community maternity unit closer to home, nearer to their families.

That’s why I will continue to stand with the people of Inverclyde in a cross-party, community-wide campaign to defend local health services.