The Michael MHK has been given details of the size and running costs of two doctors' surgeries in the south of the Island.

David Cannan (pictured) asked Health Minister Eddie Teare how many patients were registered at the Castletown and Ballasalla practices, how many full-time doctors were employed, the running costs for the last financial year and the projected costs for the next five years.

Mr Cannan, who is currently fighting to have a new surgery built in Kirk Michael rather than Mr Teare's preferred Jurby site, also wanted to know the distance between the two premises.

Edward Oldham reports (text, below, from attached audio file):

In his written reply, Mr Teare says as of April the 1 this year, there were 3,849 patients registered with Castletown Medical Centre and 4,314 with the Ballasalla surgery.

Castletown has two full-time GPs, Ballasalla also has two full-time but also one part-time GP.

Mr Teare says the department can't specifically identify the running costs as it makes contractual payments to GP practices for providing medical services, based on the number of patients registered and the services provided.

The distance between the two practices is given as 1.8 miles.