Let matrons run the hospitals – not Mr Cameron and his ilk

REGARDING Tom Richmond’s column on hospital matrons (Yorkshire Post, April 21), I remember Tony Blair promising to bring the matron back. Here we are – the hospitals in chaos. Infections rife here in Chesterfield Royal Hospital.

Recently when I was taken in after my husband thought I was having a stroke, I was in a corridor for seven hours.

Taken to the emergency ward. Awake all night due to the poor soul in the bed opposite me talking all night, asking family and friends who she could see, to take her home. Asking me if the seven young children around the bottom of my bed, were my grandchildren. Bless her, she then sang Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers – through to Revelation over and over again – never heard that one before I my life.

The lady should not have been on that ward. I was feeling very poorly, and I guess so were the other patients. Out of respect for others, she should have been in a room where she would not be disturbing anyone. I guess that would mean the staff would have give her time. Something it seems they cannot give. I was sent home the following morning 8.30am, as this was the best thing for me, as if I stayed there I would get C.diff or the Norovirus as it is rampant.

So yes, bring back the matron, maybe then they can train staff to know when the ward is clean.

So where is this wonderful NHS? Not in our backyard. Mr Cameron says we are all in this together – well no we are not. No one should be expected to live the way too many of us in ill health are forced to live.

How I wish I could see Mr Cameron in person.

From: James Anthony Bulmer, Peel Street, Horbury, Wakefield.

I FEEL compelled to criticise Tom Richmond’s opinion of the NHS at the present time (Yorkshire Post, April 21) which reads: “And blaming the last government will not suffice, many of the most appalling care lapses have happened on his – David Cameron’s – watch.”

The NHS has not been run satisfactorily for many years, and even when staff levels six or seven years ago were at the highest, and when the last government threw – borrowed – money at the NHS as if there was no tomorrow, it was still failing and debt ridden. Was greed the problem?

Nursing staff redundancies and cuts were on the cards well before this Government took over. Three or four years ago the proposed redundancies in the Wakefield district was a figure of 1,000. Apparently nothing ever came of it.

Did this leave the coalition holding the baby? Even more debt was incurred in the last two years or so of the last government. When, with no money? New hospitals and schools were built – for votes?

Layer upon layer of management will never work. Being capable and conscientious will.

From: Christine McKenzie, Beaumont Street, Stanley, Wakefield.

i HAVE type 2 diabetes and have recently had a revised total hip replacement and so cannot get down to examine my feet nor cut my own toenails. The podiatry service in Wakefield has said that they will not see me just to cut my toenails unless I have other foot complications, this being due to Government cutbacks.

This is difficult to comprehend when I have two friends who live in the Leeds area, one of whom is a diabetic, the other has had a hip replacement and neither has foot problems and yet can have their toenails cut by their podiatry service.

Maybe someone can explain?