Life expectancy of worst off in Yorkshire same as in Gaza

AFTER spending many years looking at NHS data, it is clear that one of the underlying factors to the North-South divide in life expectancy is climate.

Across Britain, even if social factors like deprivation are stripped away, life expectancy worsens as you move from the drier and warmer south east to the colder and wetter north west.

This same phenomenon is seen across Europe, so despite a number of common factors like smoking levels, Italians live 13 months longer on average than the British.

We need to look beyond these regional differences and focus on the real discrepancies between different areas in our local cities, where the stark impact of deprivation on health can be seen.

In Leeds for example, there is a 10-year gap in life expectancy across the city with those in disadvantaged Hunslet living 10 years less than their counterparts in affluent Harewood.

Despite the vast efforts of the NHS and other agencies, men in the most deprived areas of Yorkshire have life expectancies of about 71 years, the same as men in the Gaza Strip, Iraq, the Philippines, Peru and Iran.

To seriously improve the health and life expectancy of those in our most deprived areas, drastic measures are required to tackle alcohol consumption, smoking, inactivity and poor diets.

Heavy taxes on cheap alcohol, cigarettes and fatty foods would go some way towards this but no Government has the courage to do so and as a result the gulf in life expectancies between rich and poor will be allowed to grow.

From: BJ Cussons, Curly Hill, Ilkley.

PONTEFRACT Hospital’s problems, where the valuable service of weekend facilities are to be closed so soon after millions have been spent on a new hospital, is beyond belief.

If need was part of the original calculations surely it still exists?

The thought occurs to me how much public money would be saved if the five men who have been jailed for life were to receive the capital punishment they so richly deserve for their bestial attack on a former soldier (Yorkshire Post, October 22).

As our country teeters on the edge of bankruptcy due to wrong decisions in the past, should we not re-consider how, where and why we spend public money?