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Time to be realistic over NHS ills
From: Peter Green, Pocklington, York.
I HAVE little doubt that Gordon Brown's latest attempt at eye-catching political capital aimed toward the NHS will starve to death as most of the others have (Yorkshire Post, January 8).
We had the fabulous new computer system, installed at the cost of billions; we were all supposed to have had bowel screening (starting January 2007). Eight years ago, everybody was promised NHS dental care within two years.
The computer system has died, the bowel screening has not been heard of since, and about half the population has the benefit of NHS dental care.
Now we have the empty promise of even more medical screening. Instead of making unrealistic, headline-grabbing promises, why doesn't the Government start with attainable targets in the health service, like cleaning the hospitals properly, and putting a proper manager in charge?
Faith and prejudice
From: Harry Harrison, Sheffield.
IT is fortunately rare to read so ill-informed and biased an article in your newspaper as that by Richard Heller on the subject of schools (Yorkshire Post, January 9).
He is, of course, entitled to his opinion, though he seems prone to denying that right to others.
His paragraph "Faith schools ... but never regarded as equals" is particularly deplorable from a person of his background and experience. I taught in three faith (Christian) schools for 35 years from 1959 to 1994 and can honestly and categorically say that I never, ever, encountered any of the attitudes that he mentioned. If Mr Heller has any evidence other than his prejudice to justify his opinions, then let him produce it if he can – and let him be more specific if he dares.
Hunting for justification
From: Ken Coote, South Parade, Settle.
OH dear, I do seem to have touched a (very) raw nerve with Leslie Duncroft (Yorkshire Post, January 9).
I have argued the point in the past with people whose advocacy against hunting was much superior to that of Mr Duncroft's ill-tempered attack.
I do not accept that the case (that the objections to fox hunting were largely down to "political envy") falls down simply because it might
not apply to those few distinguished people to whom he refers.
We all know whence the main antipathy to hunting stems, and, to quote the old adage, could it just be that those few to whom he refers are "the exceptions that prove the rule"? I rest my case.
MRSA – the blame game
From: Ian Jowett, Ashcroft, Stanhope, Co Durham.
I CANNOT but agree with most of Bernard Dineen's observations on the MRSA superbug situation (Yorkshire Post, January 7).
However, his comments on the Government and Tory proposals are as equally fatuous as theirs. Our rapidly growing proclivity to seek someone to blame for any misfortune, plus the concomitant burgeoning of a litigation culture, make secrecy inevitable – not only in the NHS. Little wonder that the medical profession should seek to conceal the true cause when a patient dies due to MRSA.
It really is high time we all grew up and begin to recognise that things happen and we do not live in a perfect world.
Long history of migration
From: Brian J Singleton, Eaton Hill, Baslow, Derbyshire.
WHAT a shame that Colin Jordan (Yorkshire Post, January 12) didn't write his letter in German which is what he would have done if Britain's future had been left to Chamberlain or Halifax in 1940.
Immigration didn't begin in 1940.
The positive impact of the gradual assimilation of immigrants since the 17th century is well known from the Huguenots to the Polish and German Jews who settled here in the 1930s to the British Empire which provided England cricketers like Ranjitsinghi in 1900 and many others since.
Mass immigration from the West Indies was stimulated by Attlee's Government in 1946 to help fill the skills shortage after the Second World War. I don't see how Churchill enabling a victory against fascism led to the open door policy the current Government adopted in 1997?
Are we really too stupid?
From: Josephine White, Clarke Avenue, Grimsby.
MICHAEL Swaby thinks the British people are too thick to be trusted with a referendum on the EU Constitution (Yorkshire Post, January 3).
Surely he means the English people, not the British people? Because I don't recall any such squeamishness from Tony Blair's government in 1997, when he had absolutely no qualms about trusting the Scots to decide how they were to be governed.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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