A South Staffordshire doctors’ surgery is set to close, leaving 1,000 patients to search for a new GP.
The shutdown has stunned residents in Featherstone and sparked a rush to join the only other practice in the village.
It has also raised fears about medical care for people in the area with particular concern over the plight of the elderly. Featherstone Parish Council chairman and district councillor Frank Beardsmore confessed today: “I am very worried about the situation.”
The clinic in line for the axe is the South Crescent branch surgery of the Ashmore Park practice headed by Dr Eisenhower George and is expected to close at the end of the year.
A warning sign has just gone up at the Featherstone clinic and around 100 patients this week applied to join the only other GP surgery in the village as news of the shutdown spread.
Councillor Beardsmore said: “I am told that the branch surgery will close in December and that the move comes after Wolverhampton Primary Care Trust withdrew funding for it.
“But whatever the reason this is very bad news for the village. The alternative surgery in Ashmore Park is not on a direct bus route and so will be difficult to reach for many patients, especially the elderly.
“I understand the South Crescent surgery has about 1,000 patients and Wolverhampton Primary Care Trust (PCT) are expected to send letters to them giving details of the closure in the next few days.
“This is likely to put a lot of extra pressure on the other GP surgery in the village and there must be a danger of it being overwhelmed.”
Dr Eddie Lee, whose Featherstone Family Health Centre would be the only GP practice in the village after the shutdown said: “We are sorry to learn that a local surgery will be closed very shortly. Featherstone is an isolated community with pockets of severe deprivation. There is a dire need for an increase in health care provision rather than a reduction.”
Staff at the South Crescent branch surgery refused to discuss the shutdown and redirected all inquiries to Wolverhampton PCT, where Director of Public Health Dr Adrian Phillips declined to comment.
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