Hospital parking

SIR - I object to the way in which every comment about the Blackmore car park includes the word “abused”.

This could be a surreptitious way of silencing protesters before they’ve started. I know that it is difficult to patrol the car park.

If, as doctors claim, they send patients to and fro to the hospital, there will be times when a patient’s car has to remain far longer than intended, and so it is difficult to separate the genuine from the opportunists without some ticketing system.

Nevertheless, I’m appalled at the cavalier way in which patients’ needs are dismissed. There must be numerous people, like myself, who are not registered disabled, but who sometimes have difficulty in walking from the Ham car park.

We may not wish to ask for lifts from friends if we have regular appointments. Our taxi drivers are great, but many taxis are busy twice a day with school runs, so there is a time limit to their help.

I would ask people involved with health centre decisions to look more sympathetically at the plight of those patients who wish to remain independent, and not to prejudice public decisions by continually using the word “abused”.

Rev Jean Wadsworth

Sidmouth