The NHS is a ghost town at weekends

IN his column “NHS should put in the hours to win back our confidence” (Yorkshire Post, May 1), Bernard Ingham hits a raw nerve. Like him, I have recently been considering the inevitability of a future close encounter with the NHS. Bernard states “this is the destiny of the aged. Unfortunately, it is becoming more of a threat than promised”. The fear is obviously of being admitted at the weekend or, worse still, a bank holiday. Now I must add nights to the list of undermanned times.

During the three weeks my late husband was in hospital, it was only too obvious that at the weekend Pinderfields was like a ghost town. There were no senior doctors around and the junior doctors seemed to be in charge of about four wards each.

Statistics show quite plainly that our chances of survival and recovery are much greater should we be fortunate enough to experience an emergency during the week.

How has this situation been allowed to arise where our continued existence will be a matter of luck, or chance? However senior the medical staff, surely the best interests of the patient should always come first. Why can’t there be a rota system, as with nurses?

Indeed, now there are group practices of GPs the same procedure could apply to provide a more comprehensive coverage of care.

A few years ago I met a paramedic who I knew slightly. Having asked her if she was able to spend Christmas Day at home, she replied that she would be on call but she would definitely switch her phone off so that she could enjoy her dinner. How many other workers in the NHS would have the same attitude? Hopefully, not many.

However, such a remark does nothing to encourage trust in the NHS and I agree wholeheartedly with Bernard’s final comment “It is a worry pensioners could do without”.

Pensioners’ rich pickings

From: David T Craggs, Sand-le-Mere, Tunstall, East Yorkshire.

EVERY so often it becomes open season for bashing the pensioner. Sometimes it’s a suggestion that they should be banned from driving, or that they should sell their homes to pay for their health care, so an attack on their “freebie” benefits came as no surprise to me. In fact I’ve been expecting it. What those critics of the policy fail to remember is that for the best part of 50 years most pensioners, particularly men, paid more than their fair share of income tax and national insurance into the “black hole” fund known as the Exchequer. In fact most had a near perfect contribution record.

But what makes me see red is the deceitful way the idea has been floated behind such expressions as “the well-off”, “affluent”, “rich” and “wealthy”, without actually defining what exactly these expressions mean when referring to the financial status of a pensioner. Even your illustrious paper did so in its daily vote on: “Should affluent pensioners give their benefits back?” (Yorkshire Post, April 30). Had the word “affluent” been replaced by “millionaire” the result would no doubt have been very different.

Of course the coalition Government, through Iain Duncan Smith and Nick Clegg, and the Labour opposition, through Ed Miliband, are clear in their own minds, although they would never openly admit it. In their eyes a rich pensioner is one whose income is £1 above the Pension Credit limit.

Show me 
the money

From: ML Cook, Parkside Close, Cottingham, East Yorkshire.

WHERE has all the money gone? Perhaps our MPs think we should not be asking such a pertinent question as they have not been falling over each other to answer it.

We can’t ask the solicitors, lawyers or judges because they have been doing very well, they have been using the compensation culture as their cash cow, even trying to persuade people to make dubious claims to improve their takings.

Lawyers can now advertise how they can help you to get the sort of divorce that suits you best. They can help you not to get sent back to your own country just because you are a terrorist – that sort of case can last for many years. Judges can look back into history to see what sort of enquiry can be brought up again. Such enquiries can last for years, in fact they can be brought up again many times. We taxpayers have to foot the bill every time.

How much money has been lost by allowing the multi-national firms to get away with not paying their correct taxes?

No wonder our national money box is empty.