I WAS horrified, astonished and appalled at the article on the front page of the Okehampton Times last week, regarding the closure of the Okement Surgery.

It seems from your article that the decision was taken without consultation of any kind with the local community. This is completely outrageous, those who matter most, ie the patients, had no notification or even warning of the possible closure. It also seems that the decision was made as a ‘fait accompli’.

I am a patient at this surgery and cannot express how angry I am at the seemingly underhand way the whole matter has been handled. There are so many new houses being built in and around the area, but we are told that without this surgery, we will be ok for approximately 15 years. What idiot made up these figures?

Since when has the possible extra influx of 1,800 people from the closed surgery and the increasing number of houses being erected swelling the population by significant numbers, been consistent with the closing of a surgery?

The Medical Centre in Okehampton is full to bursting, there are long waiting times for appointments. They are already stretched and 1,800 more patients will strangle the system.

According to your article, some of us 1,800 will be able to join surgeries in Bow, Hatherleigh, North Tawton and the already overstretched Oke-hampton Medical Centre. Oh, I forgot, we won’t be ‘joining’ these other surgeries, we will be ‘dispersed’.  I wholly object to this statement. I am not a ‘thing’ to be shunted about and ‘dispersed’ to wherever it is decided I should go. How dare anyone suggest they can treat me in this way!

Just how are some of these patients supposed to travel to these ‘alternative’ surgeries? Public transport? That’s a joke! Drive themselves? Fine — if you can drive! Rely on family and friends? Fine, if they are around when you need them!

What next? The closure of the community hospital? How can it survive when the surgery is closed? It is GP led — who is going to be there to do that? What about all the clinics that are currently held at the hospital? What about the X-ray Department? Physiotherapy? Audiology? Podiatry? Speech Therapy?

This is OUR hospital, it is for our town, what is the future for that?

More and more people will end up in the A and E departments at either the Royal Devon and Exeter or Derriford hospitals and the ‘powers that be’ in the NHS are trying to get us to see our GPs instead of visiting A and E! — and they want to close one of our surgeries?

The mind boggles at the crass stupidity of those dusty little men/women in their dusty little offices within the NHS whose whole aim in life is to make it difficult for others. Nimbies the lot of them and living way outside the real world.

I am completely horrified and disgusted at this decision by NHS England. It is one of the most irresponsible and senseless decisions ever made by the health service.

Pauline Le Page

I AM concerned and deeply distressed to read in our local newspaper the Okehampton Times that the Okement Surgery, which is based in the Okehampton Community Hospital, and a first class facility, is to be closed in April 2016.

I understand this decision was taken by NHS England in a quite arbitrary manner.

We the patients were, according to the newspaper report and the first we had heard, to have received a letter informing us of the decision to close the surgery. To date no such letters have been received, also there has been no consultation at all. This is a disgrace.

Okehampton is a town of 7,500 plus people and is still growing as new housing estates are still being constructed.

The existing medical centre is already stretched with waiting times out to three weeks for an appointment in some cases. I understand that two of the doctors at the medical centre have closed their patient lists but this I cannot verify.

The 1,700 patients currently registered with the Okement Surgery will now have to chose an alternative surgery they wish to attend, between Okehampton Medical Centre, Hatherleigh, Bow and North Tawton — the latter three being seven miles, six miles and seven miles distance respectively.

How on earth can you expect young famiies and the elderly, often without cars, to attend these outlying surgeries is beyond comprehension. Will NHS England supply free transport on a regular basis?

Considering the proposed closure the questions we have to ask are:

1. Is this the best policy for the patients?

2. Who benefits from this decision?

3. Is this just another exercise in statistics?

4. Is this just another exercise of budgets versus medicine where budgets have the loudest voice?

5. How much thought has been given to forward planning?

John Lewis

Okehampton