Health meeting ‘a waste of time’
Residents who attended a forum in the hope of getting an out of hours doctor service returned to Newmarket Hospital have described the event as “a complete and utter waste of time”.
The event, held at the town’s Memorial Hall on Thursday, was organised by health service provider Harmoni, which took over responsibility for Suffolk’s out of hours provision in 2011 and axed the base at Newmarket Hospital in February last year.
Health campaigner and resident Cam Blyth, of Cheveley, who attended the forum to press for the return of the service, said she was told by one of the Harmoni doctors that would never happen. “I feel the people of Newmarket have been betrayed and, yet again, we have lost out to Mildenhall which has retained its out of hours base,” said Mrs Blyth.
Barry Salter, of Ferndale Close, added: “Harmoni’s latest trick was to announce a public meeting but not to provide sufficient staff, senior enough to answer our questions. Not surprising that this laissez- faire attitude pervades the whole of the service when it takes over five hours to provide a visiting doctor, when they promise one in two to four hours.”
Zoe Pursglove of Harmoni said: “We felt it (the forum) went very well with good patient feeback from the 40 people who attended.”
l For more of your views – See Pages 10 and 11.
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Weather for Newmarket
Tuesday 21 May 2013
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