IN a bid to get a message out to borough residents, the senior professionals behind two local services, a doctor's surgery and a chemist's shop, have spoken up as Thurrock moves into the middle of the first week of 'Lockdown Two', asking for understanding from local residents.

An impassioned plea has come from pharmacist Vishal Kohli, who runs the popular All Cures chemist's shop in East Tilbury.

Mr Kohli, a well-liked local figure says that staff at the shop have been receiving an unacceptable amount of abuse from people as they seek to provide a safe service to the local community.

He says: "We are working very hard through lock down to make sure that all your medication is available to you in a timely fashion, but please remember that wearing a mask in the pharmacy is a government policy, therefore without a mask we will kindly ask you to wait outside while we serve you.

"We are trying to protect ourselves and you from potentially catching the virus while in the shop, my staff come to work every day and put our own health at risk to remain open and provide as normal-as-possible service.

"Any abuse towards my staff will result in us asking you to leave the store. Those with a mask exemption please have it ready as we will ask to see it.

"We do not deserve the amount of abuse that we are currently getting just for doing our jobs, last week we were shouted a few times each day just for asking people to wear masks, if this continues we will have to close our doors and serve everyone from the door, because if one of us in the store catches Covid, we will have to close the shop for at least 10 days while we recover and do a deep clean.

"Also as a side note before telling me that you have asthma/copd please remember that we have access to your medication records!"

And across the boroiugh, in Purfleet, a leading GP says local surgeries are still providing a service to the community, despite all the problems of Covid-19, and people with non-COVID health conditions should still seek the help they need - as NHS services are still open even as the country enters its second lockdown.

Dr Mohammed Munshi, a Regional GP lead at Virgin Care which runs Purfleet Care Centre, said: "We've made changes to how we operate to align with government guidelines, but on the whole, we are as open and available as we were before the start of the pandemic.

"Although the NHS is busy, we are still open and do have capacity to see you. We would encourage you to contact your local surgery or health centre as you normally would for any mental or physical condition.

"We've worked to make our services COVID-secure. We're using appointment-only systems to carefully manage patient waiting areas and all our staff are fully-trained to maintain social distancing and use the required protective equipment.

"It is so important that people know that we are open, despite the current difficult time we find ourselves in. Every patient is important to us - please don't put off getting help."