MY husband was recently sent to Okehampton Hospital for recovery following an operation on a broken leg, carried out at the R D and E Hospital, Exeter, there being no place for him to recover at Crediton Hospital. I have no complaint at all about Okehampton Hospital, only that it is Okehampton! Do the "powers that be", who are proposing to take away post-hospital recovery beds at Crediton, realise just how difficult it is for a non-driver pensioner like myself – and there must be more of us – to get to and from Okehampton by bus to fit in with visiting hours? The buses run every two hours and I would leave home at 11.30am to catch the 12 o'clock bus from Crediton High Street. The bus would then, having taken in several villages en-route, arrive in Okehampton one hour and 20 minutes later, dropping off in the middle of the town and leaving a 20 minute walk to the hospital. After a hurried visit, it was time to do the whole thing in reverse. Had it not been for the kindness and help of friends, many of them pensioners themselves, I could never have kept up regular visiting. My husband is now back at home, with a six week package of a daily morning visit from a carer. We are grateful for this but it cannot replace the early period of settling down after what is often a traumatic spell in hospital. Crediton is growing rapidly, in size and population, which, we are constantly being told, is "ageing". As always, we come way down the list of priorities. Name and address supplied