6 minute read
Profile: Dr Heywood
PROFILE Is there a doctor in the house?
Dr Heywood looks back
In 1964, when Dr and Mrs Heywood first came to the imposing house on the corner of the Market Place and Stamford Road, the Doctor’s House for over 150 years, it was not only leaky and cold but Dr Heywood found amputation and post mortem equipment in the loft!
Taking over the surgery from Dr Fraser, an Aberdonian Scot, after 30 years, the waiting room was the little cottage next door at number three and the surgery was in the house. With no staff (although ably assisted by wife Kathleen, previously a Ward Sister at Stamford Hospital) records were found as each patient came in and, after diagnosis, the Doctor counted out the pills. Dr Fraser, loathe to employ a member of staff to do so, had rolled the pills himself as had been the custom; for example, he used dried foxglove leaves (providing unpredictable dosages) for the preparation of Digoxin, a treatment for heart conditions.
Three Doctors covered an area about the size of the Isle of Wight (containing about 10,000-11,000 patients) which included Littleworth, Wilsthorpe, Baston, Tallington, Maxey, Bainton, Glinton and Peakirk. Dr Douglas practised from Fairfax House in Deeping Gate, and Dr Barling covered Peakirk from a surgery in Glinton.
Trained at St Thomas’s in London and serving his first two years as a GP in the mining town of Ilkeston, Dr Heywood’s modern techniques were not what the locals were used to.
This was still a largely farming community with many living in tied cottages and deferring to their farming employers. Providing a 24-hour service, seven days a week, the relationship between the GP and the community was more personal than it is today. On one hard Monday Dr Heywood saw 99 patients in his surgery and went on 34 home visits, essential for the villages, whose residents had sparse access to transport. Days would start at 8.00 a.m. and often not did not finish until 9.00 p.m.
Dr Heywood, the father of three young sons, was acutely aware of the lack of recreational facilities in the area and, wanting to promote healthy living, helped to set up the Market Deeping Sports and Social Club when the Cricket Club, of which he was Secretary, was unceremoniously removed from a field at White House Farm. As a Market Deeping (then) Parish Councillor, of which he was Chairman for four years, Dr Heywood, with Town Clerk Effrys Jones, helped to set up the Scouts in Market Deeping in one of the Nissan huts previously used by RAF Langtoft. He also lent his strong support to District Councillor Betty Opperman, who fought for the Leisure Centre to be built in the Deepings, and for green space to be part of planning consents. As Chair of the Governors of the Deepings School he was instrumental in appointing Dr Bryers as Head and ultimately ensuring that the School had its own Sixth Form.
With the growth of the community, it became apparent that the Doctor’s surgery was too small and with Jim Curly, a Market Deeping Parish
Councillor, Dr Heywood oversaw the building of the Fire and Police Station and Health Centre in 1972 in the grounds of Wade House, which had been sold to Lincolnshire County Council for £55,000. Almost too small even when it was first built, it housed seven doctors and, taking advantage of becoming a fund-holding practice, was able to provide a counsellor, Health Visitor for the elderly and the equipment to undertake minor operations. With more doctors on the patch, night visits and weekends on-call were shared on a rota basis, though Dr Heywood advocated that each doctor kept their own personal list so that invaluable patient knowledge was retained.
Immunisation was one of the changes that had the most impact over the years and Doctor Heywood was proud that his practice was the first in the country to undertake mass immunisation against meningococcal meningitis, following an outbreak of four cases in one day. Thackers Way was being built at the time and building stopped to allow buses of schoolchildren to be brought to the health centre, where volunteers were pressed into action, and there was widespread media coverage.
15 ‘Overall,’ he recalls, ‘it would have been difficult to run a bad practice in the Deepings. We had a strong team and with only small pockets of deprivation, people on the whole embraced exercise, and good food, and are articulate and interested.’ Leaving the Centre in good shape, the farewell party held at the House, which had seen many family parties, was for fifty staff and their partners: quite a change from the lone practice of the 1960s.
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