EDENBRIDGE AND DISTRICT WAR MEMORIAL HOSPITAL LEAGUE OF FRIENDS

The League of Friends, formed in 1957, will celebrate its Golden Anniversary next year. 

It is run as a charitable trust to provide and improve facilities for both patients and staff at Edenbridge and Didistrict War Memorial Hospital - facilities that the NHS are unable to fund but which the community deserves and has a right to expect. The Hospital is now a "state of the art" Community Hospital serving a scattered semi-rural community. Over the past 30 years, the League of Friends has raised almost £1,000,000, which, when taking inflation into account, is worth in today's money over £1.6 millions.

In the last three years alone, the League of Friends has spent in excess of £300,000 in upgrading the Hospital's premises, as part of a £1,000,000 overhaul of the entire Hospital. In addition, it has spent £65,000 in renovating and completely re-equipping the Physiotherapy Department and a further £25,000 on purchasing specialist eye and audio testing equipment, as well as funding many other items.

The Hospital's future is however "uncertain". It will need the community's support in order to retain and develop its services further. The League is working closely with the community, the Primary Care Trust and Social Services to look at all options for the future and will keep the community fully informed of developments.

In January,2006, the Hospital had seven of its seventeen beds closed "temporarily". At the public meeting held in July at the Edenbridge Leisure Centre, when more than 800 residents attended, David Meikle, then, and up to 30^th September, the CEO of the present Primary Care Trust, did not rule out closure of the Hospital when the current review was completed.