A former Medical Clinic user has outlined how keeping patients in the dark contributed to anger over the facility's controversial closure.

Walter Howes, a homeless patient for ten years, was among many campaigners who complained people were not being consulted during last year's row over the facility's demise.

Premier Ewart Brown, who announced the clinic would close in his 2006 Throne Speech, said it had to be shut because those using it were suffering from a lack of dignity.

However, patients like Mr. Howes were upset they were not asked their opinions — and further angered that Government initially refused to let them know what system was going to replace the clinic.

Bad feeling culminated in a protest in March, in which scores of campaigners marched on Cabinet to demand Government reconsiders its closure.

The Royal Gazette's A Right To Know: Giving People Power campaign is urging Dr. Brown to introduce legislation which would allow the man on the street greater access to Government decision-making; and for the public to be allowed into meetings over subjects which affect them.

Mr. Howes, who approached this newspaper after reading about A Right To Know, said a think-tank should have been set up over the Medical Clinic.

"We should have been kept in the loop better but they never wanted us," he said. "Government treated street people as dumb, stupid and backward. How do you expect us to deal with that?"

Asked how things would have been different if patients had been involved in the decision-making process, he replied: "It would have made a lot of difference. You could look at the service that you have and see how it's constructed.

"I would have made them go out there and look at the websites in the US and Britain, and the US, to see how their treatment centres work.

"Any Government that is so secret that they don't know the people ain't worth being alive. This Government don't have any involvement with the people. They need to get to the people.

"This is my opinion, from my outlook as a person living in these conditions, and they didn't ask what I thought."

Do you think people should have access to meetings in which decisions are made which affect them? E-mail arighttoknow@royalgazette.bm or call 278-0155 or 278-8359.