THERE is surely something desperately wrong with society when security guards have to be recruited to protect a health centre.

Bolton Community Healthcare Trust bosses have given the go-ahead this week for security guards to be brought into the Avondale Health Centre in Brownlow Fold.

The desperate move comes as a result of staff and patients suffering for weeks from a barrage of abuse and intimidation from a gang of youths -- some as young as seven-years-old.

Doctors' cars have been jumped on, windows smashed, patients and staff verbally abused, and the building was even almost destroyed by fire in an arson attack.

What a shameful state of affairs. Where are these youngsters' parents? Surely, they should know what their children are getting up to.

Targeting sick people and those who treat them has to be as low as a person can get.

What possible gain can there be for these youths in targeting a health centre?

In doing so they attack the most vulnerable people in their own community -- and, equally as bad, those who come to work each day to treat them.

We must now hope that security guards prevent further attacks, but, equally, we must be aware that these youths are likely to turn their attention to another vulnerable target. If they are capable of targeting a health centre, it is frightening to ponder to what new depths they will sink.