Patients celebrate victory in fight to keep surgery

PATIENTS who fought the closure of their doctor's surgery have won their battle to keep it open.

With the help of Penycae Community Council and Clwyd Community Health Council (CHC) registered patients in Penycae will continue to have a surgery at their village church after Ruabon Medical Centre, which operates it, failed to gain permission to close it down.

Wrexham Local Health Board agreed the Penycae branch surgery, which runs out of a back room at the Church of the Nazarene, should re-main open to patients.

The Ruabon practice had argued that the poor standard of facilities at the surgery and a shortage of doctors meant it should close.

However, the board took the view that it should stay open because of the poor public transport links to Ruabon and the large number of patients the closure would affect.

Myra Hughes, of Penycae Residents' Association, said villagers were delighted.

'The idea the surgery would close was ridiculous,' she said.

'There are a number of disabled people in Penycae and to expect them to get the bus to Johnstown, cross a busy main road and get another bus to Ruabon surgery is plain crazy.

'Hopefully, now this issue has been resolved, work can begin on the new surgery in Penycae which is planned for Maelor Road.'

Clwyd CHC chief officer Carolyn Theobold said she was also pleased with the result.

'We understand the problems the Ruabon practice faces but the people of Penycae cannot be expected to get two buses every time they want to see a doctor. There is a national shortage of GPs and measures brought in recently to attract more may take years to have a real impact.'

She added: 'We also appreciate the facilities at Penycae are far from ideal. We are not anti-Ruabon but we want to help them provide adequate services for the village.

'The practice still has 30 days to appeal against the decision and we are waiting to see if they will.

'But Penycae could be a really successful surgery. There were plans discussed a few years ago for a new surgery in the village which could be resurrected as an idea, and our re-search indicates that if the surgery was open regularly rather than closing whenever there was a staff shortage, more people would use it.'

Ruabon Medical Centre insisted their service would not improve, as resources needed to run a branch surgery were still in short supply.

'Due to the general problems in appointing a new partner, we do not foresee any change in the current situation with the difficulties at Penycae,' said practice manager Rosemary Bartley.