NEWS has reached us from a reliable source close to the Wiltshire PCT that there will be no New Generation Community Hospital for west Wiltshire following Pathways for Change.

Their argument seems to hinge on the new treatment centre to be built in Devizes for 2008; this centre will have no beds, Devizes has no train station and the town is highly congested with traffic for many hours of the day. The Devizes centre will present even greater travel problems for local people particularly the frail and elderly; no doubt the PCT would wash their hands of this problem hoping charities would take up the task.

Recently the X-ray equipment has been removed from Westbury Hospital: this may have been an illegal act by the PCT. Can we expect the same lowly tactics from the new PCT as that amply demonstrated by West Wiltshire PCT?

The result of not having a New Generation Community Hospital in west Wiltshire would be a savage blow to community spirit, healthcare and the economy in this rural area. It would create an NHS desert where surely local people could not be expected to contribute to the NHS from taxes.

It would prompt a need for a countrywide reappraisal of the NHS and perhaps its disintegration. Our local hospitals belong to us and it may be that we will need charities and voluntary contributions to keep them going given that the PCT would have the decency to return the hospitals to local people where they belong. Progress is a wonderful thing.

B LEES, Dilton Marsh