Face hospital reality

We were given solid promises before the old Littlehampton Hospital was demolished that a new and better one would be built immediately. The Primary Care Trust and others have broken that solemn pledge, and six years on we still have no decision.

I have always supported Zachary Merton Hospital, from its time as a maternity hospital, through its transition to community hospital, and have nothing but praise for its staff and enthusiastic League of Friends, who have kept it going through thick and thin.

But the words on the condition of the buildings for which Linda Beard chastised me (Gazette letters, July 21) came from the estates surveyor of the hospital and were quoted by me.

We have to recognise reality, and that reality is that Zachary Merton has a limited life, and unless we get the new hospital in Littlehampton, with out-patients, X-ray, physiotherapy, minor injuries unit and beds, the whole area will have no community hospital at all when Zachary Merton has to close.

That is why there should be no division in our community, but all pushing together to ensure that the whole area gets the modern 21st-century community hospital facilities that will serve the whole area even better than Zachary Merton and the former Littlehampton Hospital have done. Join the fight!

Dr James Walsh,

county, district and town councillor for Littlehampton East and Rustington North,

The Street,

Rustington