Thoughts on Sidmouth hospital and health centre issues

It would appear our cottage hospital is not as safe as we had hoped for at the present time.

Having raised and spent over £1million in recent years, the much-needed Minor Injuries Unit (MIU) was closed. The MIU at The Beacon is neither easily accessible, nor available at weekends.

I believe there is a proposal to extent the hospital gardens, but with the possible loss of bed spaces added to the MIU area, perhaps some space could be found in the hospital grounds. We do not really need a garden and upkeep there at all, but we do need a GP surgery. It could preserve our hospital too.

With the acute bed blocking at the RD&E and the loss of Green Close, care in the community is not working. We will always need our hospital and always will.

I wrote to Hugo Swire as suggested in the Herald, re the health centre. I received a polite reply which stated that everyone at the (NHS Property Services) meeting on September 19 was entirely committed to establishing a ‘state-of-the-art’ facility in the centre of Sidmouth.

I would like to suggest most of us would be happy with just a fully-functional building adjacent to, or within, the hospital grounds and the preservation of our hospital.

If funds are available for the ‘state-of-the-art’ build, perhaps we, or rather the NHSPS and NHS England, could look again at extending the present facility for the purpose for which it was built and the benefit of more people, rather than a few more flats. We have enough of them.

Mrs JH Downer

Tyrrell Mead, Sidmouth