At a recent Age Concern Forum, the young guest speaker tried to convince us that patients were eager to go straight home after treatment in one of the main hospitals and to be cared for at home.

How wrong she is. Living here in a retirement complex of 72 flats and bedsitting rooms, I can assure her it's the last thing they want. They don't want to be alone.

They need 24-hour tender, loving care, to be with others and to know help is there at the touch of a button.

Earlier this year, two friends were in Marcham Road Hospital in Abingdon for five weeks and I was able to visit them regularly because the hospital is near.

This would not have been possible if they had been sent to Wallingford.

At the Save Our Hospitals meeting in the Guildhall, Abingdon, questions were raised.

If the local hospital were sold privately, how did we feel about the trust buying beds as required?

If the hospital closed in the future, would that not leave the site in danger of redevelopment? Is the land theirs to sell or does it belong to the community? And why this huge deficit?

The Government boasts of the millions poured in to the NHS. Well, where has it gone?

According to radio, TV and the newspapers, it's partly because more and more managers are being taken on, paid fat salaries and promised gold-plated pensions. Ask senior doctors and gynaecologists how they feel when summoned to numerous unnecessary meetings, instead of being allowed to get on with their work.

AUDREY REEVES, Drayton Road, Abingdon