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Hospital closure will hit many Warminster people
(October 28, 2009)WARMINSTER hospital celebrated its 80th birthday last week with a visit by the Marquis of Bath - grandson of the fifth marquis who laid the foundation stone of the building in 1929.
But while we at least still have a facility, albeit denuded of its important minor injuries unit , another hospital closure this week will hit many Warminster residents.
Westbury hospital, which has been closed to in-patients for more than a year, is about to close for good.
The facility was still in use by consultants who used the site to see a wide variety of people from across this part of Wiltshire.
Now the out-patients, many from Warminster, will have to travel to Bath or Salisbury to see the consultants instead of the consultants coming to us.
'This is another example of failure by NHS Wiltshire which seems to me to be more interested in public relations than anything else,' said Steve Dancey.
'The people who will find this change most tiresome will of course be the sick and the old who most use these services.
'It will also put additional pressure on the patients' transport service to the Royal United Hospital in Bath.
'A thoroughly short-sighted move - so much for the NHS being safe in the hands of the Labour Party - only in areas where they have MPs it seems.
'The whole subject disgusts me.'
But while we at least still have a facility, albeit denuded of its important minor injuries unit , another hospital closure this week will hit many Warminster residents.
Westbury hospital, which has been closed to in-patients for more than a year, is about to close for good.
The facility was still in use by consultants who used the site to see a wide variety of people from across this part of Wiltshire.
Now the out-patients, many from Warminster, will have to travel to Bath or Salisbury to see the consultants instead of the consultants coming to us.
'This is another example of failure by NHS Wiltshire which seems to me to be more interested in public relations than anything else,' said Steve Dancey.
'The people who will find this change most tiresome will of course be the sick and the old who most use these services.
'It will also put additional pressure on the patients' transport service to the Royal United Hospital in Bath.
'A thoroughly short-sighted move - so much for the NHS being safe in the hands of the Labour Party - only in areas where they have MPs it seems.
'The whole subject disgusts me.'