Stop the closure of Sydenham Green health clinic

We the undersigned object to the closure of the sexual health clinic in Sydenham Green Health Centre
We believe this will mean difficulties because of the extra travel distance, increased cost and inconvenience for users of the clinic who are predominantly local and many under 25yrs.Users may have caring responsibilities, a limit on the time they have to attend due to work and family commitments and accessing public transport can be very demanding if not impossible for these users, especially in winter. Lower socio –economic groups will be disadvantaged by these changes as will the groups mentioned below.
According to the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust the target groups for this service are quote” young people, men who have sex with men, black and minority ethnic groups and the vulnerable within the community. This is an outrageous attack on such groups in our community.

Making potential users travel further may deter them from attending altogether. The clinic at Sydenham Green provides free contraceptives for young people.
The impact of the closure may be a rise in untreated STI’s and unwanted pregnancies.
The closure of Sydenham Green will also have an impact on the sexual health clinics in the other areas expected to take up the shortfall increasing the workload of the Waldron, Hawstead Road and Downham clinics. Waiting times will then increase at these clinics.
The increased use of on line testing moves away from the confidentiality essential to users of these services and putting off users is a false economy which will not ultimately save the NHS money.
This is primarily a cost saving exercise by the CCG .We ask for adequate budgets and resources and a reversal of this decision. The CCG website states ”We do all we can to ensure that local people get the most accessible services possible”. We do not agree.