A new Okehampton resident has said he was ‘shocked’ that his offer to step in and save the ‘Friends’ charity for Okehampton and District Hospital has been turned down. 

The Friends of Okehampton Hospital Charity was formally wound up at a meeting at the Ockment Centre last week.

Chairman Martin Perry said the decision of had been made with ‘great sadness’ after 60 years but that ‘no members had come forward to be nominated for chairman, secretary or treasurer’.

 However, new resident Mark Richards said he and his fiancee Jane Habernehl had offered their services at this meeting, as they already had experience running another Devon charity. 

They were, however, told they could not take on the roles left vacant by the death of the secretary and resignation of the treasurer as they were not prior members of the charity.

Mr Richards said they were concerned that if the charity closed, it would send a message to the health authorities that the Okehampton community had given up on the hospital, where the two wards of in-patient beds are currently mothballed, although a range of clinics continue.

‘What really shocked me was that in response to the front page on the Okehampton Times asking people to save the charity, so few people turned up. My fiancee Jane and I, as relative newcomers, came along as we have experience of running a charity. We know what we are doing, what is involved. When we walked in as a response of the paper’s front page article, they looked at us strangely. It was advertised as a general meeting, therefore people who are members and non-members should be allowed to go.’

‘They clearly made a decision that this was what they were going to do so I waited until they had finished their speech. Jane and I explained we would volunteer, we would take it on. We were told, though, that we couldn’t because we were not members of the charity.’

He continued: ‘I’m very disturbed at the way the health authorities are managing to close the hospital, and as far as I’m concerned, not having what we call the Friends of Okehampton Hospital is another nail in the coffin. It is a way for the authorities to turn around and continue the move of centralising healthcare in Exeter to the detriment of Okehampton. 

‘With the building of the Parkway station and the fact we have this development of housing in Okehampton, there is every reason to be moving Okehampton forward not backwards and the closing of such a charity is such a retrograde step. In fact we should be fighting for the hopsital.

He raised concerns about healthcare provision in the community, and also where the £109,000 that the charity has in its bank account will go when it is wound up. The  members of the charity discussed this going to local hospice charity Hospiscare. 

Mr Perry, responding to the criticism, said the closure of the hospital charity  was ‘inevitable’.

 ‘It is a shame that the charity is closing after 60 years but really the requests for help coming through are minimal,’ he said.

‘Most of the consultants who come to the clincs [at the hospital] bring their own equipment and without the beds there is no trolley service to provide, none of the little extras and that is what we were there for, to provide the little extra comforts the NHS don’t provide. 

‘It isn’t good to leave it open at the moment because there is no requests. There is no fundraising either.

‘It has taken us years and years to reach this point and two offers of help from people who are not members is not enough to change that. They weren’t members of the Friends of the Hospital. We  had no nominations from chairty members.We have been trying for many years to get people to take part and I think 20 years is long enough.’

He said discussions were still in place about where the money would go but it will be to other charitable good causes within Okehampton. 

‘We have had suggestions, particularly cancer care in Okehampton, so we may be investigation that with the RD&E.’

The winding up of the charity comes after the death of long-serving secretary Mary Rattenbury and the departure of treasurer Ann Lane.