OVER the past few months, several health centres in Basingstoke have been in the news.

Last year it was announced that the Overbridge Surgery in Worting Road was to close and its patients be transferred to the Gillies Health Centre at Brighton Hill over the new few years.

The Overbridge Surgery, on the corner of South Ham Road, which serves that side of the South Ham estate, was opened in 1957 then rebuilt in 1961.

The Gillies Health Centre in Sullivan Road, which has served the Brighton Hill estate since 1983, has now been demolished to make way for a brand-new two-storey building which will include a pharmacy. The centre is under the Gillies and Overbridge Medical Partnership and is named after Sir Harold Gillies, the eminent plastic surgeon who worked at Basingstoke hospital.

Another health centre in the news is the South Ham House in Pinkerton Road, which hopes to be accompanied in the future by a new surgery at the top of Stag Hill at South Ham.

Opened in 1979, the South Ham House practice is twinned with the Hatch Warren Health Centre.

Basingstoke town area has altogether some dozen surgeries or health centres, with 47 doctors, for a population of around 92,000 people, which includes those at Chineham.

Way back in the early 19th century, there were just three doctors in the town to look after some 3,500 people, and by 1871, with an increased population of 5,500, there were still only three doctors.

During the early part of the 20th century, there was a need for more doctors in the town due to the development of the commercial and industrial side of the area, and new houses being built.

In 1879, the Cottage Hospital in Hackwood Road had been built, and this was later extended to include more beds. In 1955, an outpatients department was built next to it, which meant more doctors were required.

Until the National Health Service came into force on July 4, 1948, people attending the local surgeries or receiving visits from their doctors had to pay for these services.

In the early 1940s the payment was usually five shillings (25p), but the new health scheme did away with all that and prescriptions and appliances were free until 1952, when medicines had to be paid for.

Over the years, the increase in prescription costs has proved a controversial subject for the NHS.

The NHS system soon settled down and the three main doctors’ surgeries were able to cope with the amount of patients needing treatment in the town.

There were two in New Street next to each other, at numbers one and three, where seven doctors were “cooped up” (as some of the patients thought) in premises not really suitable for a surgery.

People waited in a corridor with one eye on the indicator as to when they could see their doctor, and there was always “someone standing in the way of the thing”.

One of the doctors used to give the children a sweet to cheer them up!

In 1964, the surgery at number three New Street was demolished but, by then, a new, larger surgery had been built on the junction between Church Square and Mortimer Lane, where seven doctors carried out their practice.

Another surgery was set in the old Bramblys Grange House, which was eventually demolished and a new health centre built on the site in 1968.

Another surgery was at 14 Winchester Road, which was later closed and pulled down.

(The Church Square surgery later also closed down.) Further fully modernised health centres with facilities for chiropody, dental treatment and other health matters were built on the various housing estates as the Town Development Scheme progressed.

It was Hippocrates in the fifth century BC who more or less established the present health system, with physicians giving medical aid to the residents of his community.

The Hippocratic Oath – “Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick . . .” is still used to this day when doctors are sworn in before carrying out their lifetime careers.

Over the ages, doctors have used various forms of transport to get to their patients, and when the motor car came along, they were blessed with a fast way of travel.

The first British doctor to use a car was Dr T Roberts of Harrogate in 1895, and over the years, he must have worn them out, for by 1925, he had been the owner of some 64 different cars.