A L Coulter, of Becket Road, Bovey Tracey, writes:
For decades, the people of Bovey Tracey have treasured, fought and saved their pennies to have and keep all their hospital facilities open, up and running. The Friends of Bovey Tracey Hospital have worked their socks off to ensure maintenance and upkeep is achieved successfully, even in the face of modern requirements and a very regimented health authority which has not always bent over backwards to be of assistance.
Indeed, modernisation has not always been a 'given' unless sizeable contributions were forthcoming from the Friends.
Gradually, as if nobody caraes or will notice what is happening, the powers that be appear to be whittling away the facilities here bit by bit, forgetting to reinstate this or that, until an argument can be produced such as you have not had this facililty for the last few months so why should it be reinstated? Or nobidy missed it so why do you want/need it?
The hospital is in Bovey Tracey, five minutes away from anyone in the parish, only really a stone's throw by comparison to the new shut-at-night hospital unit at Newton Abbot or that at Ashburton.
Sure, we can all drive to alternative places, indeed we already have to at midnight because nothing else is availabale, but we should not have to incur the inconvenience and expense of doing so when the residents of the town have done their utmost to maintain a full hospital facility here during reasonable daytime hours.
The next thing we will probably learn is that, calamitously, there is a shortage of cleaners or equipment and that the proposed period of three weeks' shutdown will have to be extended, which then becomes another reason to advocate the closure of the hospital totally and so the whittling will be inevitably pursued.
The town council will fight, with the townspeople's wholehearted support, but the odds are not in their favour unless there is a very loud, sustained period of complaint, vigorously sustained in order to prevent the disaster of closure.
No doubt when they read this, the powers that be will protest that it is all wrong, not true, etc, etc.
So I say prove my assertions wrong.THIS AND OTHER LETTERS IN OUR ONLINE EDITION