Nightingale Surgery has cat visitor which won't leave Lee health centre (From News Shopper)

Nightingale Surgery has cat visitor which won't leave Lee health centre

11:03am Friday 7th September 2012 in News By

PEOPLE don't normally like going to the doctors but it seems this paw-ly puss can't keep away.

This cat, which keeps returning to a Lewisham doctor's surgery despite staff's efforts to keep him out, has become an online sensation.

The photos, taken at Lee's Nightingale Surgery, shows the moggy lounging on a seat in the waiting room beneath a sign which reads: "We are aware that the cat is frequently in the health centre and we do all we can to remove it but it comes back every time there is an opportunity to do so."

It adds: "Please do not touch the cat and if you do then you will do so at your own risk."

Since being posted on Facebook on August 29 the pictures have been 'liked' by nearly 10,500 people and shared by more than 6,000.

One Lewisham resident even claimed on the website to have seen the very same feline sitting in his downstairs toilet, while others have talked up the possible therapeutic effects of having a live-in cat at the doctor's.

Rumours that the animal may hail from Catford remain unconfirmed.

A spokesman for the centre, based in Handen Road, said: "We have been working closely with the owner of the cat to invoke ways to encourage him not to come into the health centre,

"We have also been in touch with the RSPCA and the local cat refuge for ideas to try and persuade him to move elsewhere but these have been so far unsuccessful."