YP letters: Hip fracture care policy is broken

THE Patients Association fully supports the National Hip Fracture Database’s recommendations to improve hip fracture care. We have heard from patients on our National Helpline who have either waited too long for their hip operations, or who have received poor care during rehabilitation. With 60,000 hip operations a year, this is an all too common problem.

Cuts to social care budgets have left many hip fracture patients particularly vulnerable. A lack of available intermediate care is leaving these elderly patients at risk. We are on the brink of a winter crisis. Elderly patients must have a network of social care to help restart their lives after such major surgery.

The Patients Association calls for an end to the variation in care that many hip fracture patients are currently receiving. Hospitals must ensure that all patients are given the necessary hydration, drug and physiotherapist plans to allow them to recover from surgery. CCGs must now implement these recommendations and work towards providing a consistent level of care for all hip fracture patients.

Ignoring the cause of floods

From: Dave Croucher, Pinfold Gardens, Doncaster.

THE present spate of flooding will always be repeated because the Government and Environment Agency do not seem to be able to get their heads around the cause. Their current policy seems to be to raise a bank here and there, which only causes flooding elsewhere.

The village of Fishlake in South Yorkshire was completely surrounded by water when we had the heavy rain in 2007, so what does the Environment Agency do? Their answer to the danger has been to raise the bank on the far side of the River Don. Now, if anyone can explain to me and the rest of the villagers how this is going to stop us from flooding the next time we have bad weather in our area, we would be very interested to hear.

The local people wanted a return to dredging but I believe this is being refused because of the cost. They don’t take into account the human misery caused by flooding.

Fanciful ideas on EU’s power

From: Thomas W. Jefferson, Batty Lane, Howden, Goole.

THE contrast between the letters from Chris Zanetti and David Gray (The Yorkshire 
Post, December 8) was very telling.

On the one hand we have a nebulous view of the benefits 
of our EU membership and on the other hand we have a practical example of the depressingly familiar tale of EU “over-reach” with a regulation that runs counter to the instincts of the people who have to implement it.

Contrary to Chris Zanetti’s claims, any influence we have at the UN comes from the fact that we are a permanent member of its Security Council, not from our 10 per cent voting power in the EU.

With Nato, our influence comes from the fact that we 
are one of its largest contributors and have the fourth largest defence budget in the world, 
not from our membership 
of the EU with its dubious 
record in matters of foreign policy.

The claim that the EU is “the largest economic force in the world” is fanciful.

The US dollar and China’s massive foreign reserves represent economic force. The only economic force the EU has is that of a loose-cannon waiting to go off during the next global downturn when the euro will prove, once again, that it is not fit for purpose.

From: Mr I Oglesby, High Catton Road, Stamford Bridge, York.

DON Burlsam’s opinions (The Yorkshire Post, December 7) are typical of Europhiles who believe that there is some cure for the financial and political turmoil in the moribund EU. Leaving this profligate mess, controlled by an unelected elite in Brussels, is a priority in order to gain free access to trade with those rapidly developing countries.

After ‘Brexit’, co-operation will continue to counter crime in areas of democracy, a subject the EU badly needs to brush up on.

In referring to wars, we remember the complete lack of diplomacy in Brussels to avert the Balkans conflict, the riots, suicides and poverty in Southern Europe and the offer of Utopia to Ukraine, causing a war which will probably escalate. The German-controlled EU is temporary. The days of Nation States are not over, as suggested, but represent the future for freedom, common sense and democracy.

Nothing to return to...

From: David Craggs, Shafton Gate, Rotherham.

ONE issue that was never considered during the Parliamentary discussion of bombing Isis in Syria was who will foot the bill to rebuild the country once the political situation is settled.

Footage of some of the towns in the country reminded me of Dresden after allied bombing during the Second World War.

One way of supposedly solving the migrant crisis is to eventually encourage the Syrians to go back to their homeland, but to what...their towns having been reduced to a mass of rubble?