The meeting came at the end of public consultation on the plans

Health officials said the change was needed to ensure facilities were suitable for the future.

The meeting follows a protest march last weekend, attended by more than 1,000 people.

Lead campaigner Geraint Vaughan-Jones s received massive backing at the meeting and afterwards he said: "You sense the feeling here and if they insist on carrying on with these proposals then we'll be taking it further.

"If they say that they're here to listen to the people and if they are going to go away tonight's and say they have not heard anything, what can you do except carry on and try to get what we really require in the town."

There has been a public consultation since July, when Gwynedd Local Health Board (LHB) announced the plans.

Where are they going to get the nurses to visit people in their own homes, where will they get the money to pay them to travel around? Dwynwen Thomas, hospital campaigner

The health board said the memorial hospital was "not providing services in an efficient way, due to low bed occupancy rates".

It also said the hospital building, which was built in 1925, was "unsuitable in terms of ward layout and ensuring the privacy of patients".

Grace Lewis-Parry, from the health board, told BBC Wales Today: "It's a very difficult and sensitive area for people to think about the longer term and obviously each and everyone of us has fears and anxieties about the future.

The LHB plans include cutting all in-patient facilities at the hospital, and increasing the amount of home care.

But the minor injuries unit and X-ray services would continue to be provided.

Inpatient services would transfer to Bron-y-Garth Hospital and later to the new hospital in Tremadog.

But supporters of the hospital want to see more, not fewer, facilities.

More than 1,000 people took part in Saturday's march

"The arguments they have put forward just don't make sense," said Dwynwen Thomas, a member of the Ffestiniog Memorial Hospital defence committee.

"They've told us that hospitals with less than 30 beds are unviable and yet they are building a new hospital in Porthmadog with 24 beds."

More assistance

"They tell us that care for the terminally ill will be in their own homes. Where are they going to get the nurses to visit people in their own homes, where will they get the money to pay them to travel around?" she said.

Gwynedd County Council's head of social services Glyn Hughes noted in a report on the hospitals review that closing the beds would mean "carers would need more assistance."

The LHB said the reorganisation would improve health services including "a team of nurses, therapists and social workers to provide support and rehabilitation at home, a heart failure service, substance misuse service, palliative care at home and chronic disease management."

The local health board is due to make its final decision on the hospital's future on 3 November. But if it does not have the backing of Meirionnydd Community Health Council, the decision will pass to Welsh Health Minister Dr Brian Gibbons.