Today’s NHS is infected with bureaucracy

IT is very sad indeed to hear of the many problems reported both locally and nationally with the NHS.

I cannot help but think back to the 1960s when the local hospital group, Pontefract, Castleford and Goole, was administered very efficiently by no more than a dozen people.

A matron was very much in charge of the medical side and had the respect of the talented team of consultants in all departments as she had, at her fingertips, the daily medical requirements of patients and ensured that they were treated in an extremely hygienic atmosphere and discharged only when they were sufficiently recovered and their home circumstances were at least adequate to continue their recovery.

Later in that decade, I noticed with amazement that the remuneration of some of the highly qualified consultants was overtaken by some of the administrators.

Hearing now of the many 
layers of administrators 
presiding over the NHS 
whose career progress seems to depend on how quickly they can get the patients through the system and back home at any time of day or night and paying little regard to the number of patients who have to be re-admitted to deal with post-operative problems.

Would it not be possible 
to publish the following information for comparison: 
the number and cost of 
admin staff of hospitals in, 
say 1970, against number and cost of medical staff at that 
time and similar statistics for 
the present day admin and medical staff?

Furthermore, I feel that 
the pressure on A&E departments could be significantly reduced if 24 hour cover was provided by local GPs who have ready access to patient records.

From: Jack Kinsman, Stainton Drive, Grimsby.

IF an ageing relative is in 
constant pain, and I assist her 
to have a decent pain-free 
death in a dignified way by taking her to Switzerland, I will be severely punished and put in prison.

If this same relation is in 
agony, and I deprive her of 
water, at home (which is a very painful death), I will be prosecuted by a court of law and end up in prison.

If I take my very poorly aged relative to hospital, put on a 
white coat, call myself a 
“doctor”, I can starve my relative to nearly the point of death, then deprive her of fluids, so that she dies a terrible death 
of dehydration, then that is perfectly legal.

What a stupid “Health Service” this Government runs when my relatives cannot die with dignity as they wish to do, but can be murdered by the state. I wonder what I fought for!

Present threat to Futurist

From: Barrie Craig, Tabbs Court, Scholes, Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire.

I WAS surprised to see that the Futurist Theatre in Scarborough (Yorkshire Post, July 17) looks doomed. There are more than shades of Walmington-on-Sea here. When will the sad decline of our cultural heritage end?

First the Odeon in Bradford and now the Futurist. Local groups have fought hard to save the Odeon. I hope that the people of Scarborough follow the same path. One possible solution is to incorporate the Futurist in the education system of the town – “catch ’em young Mr Mainwaring, catch ’ em young”.

Encourage schools to stage productions at the theatre.

Allow six schools, one month each, to use the premises for drama lessons. It is a valuable resource, so use it.

A new development does not have the aura of history and memories. How many people of Mr Mainwaring’s era have the Futurist in their treasured memory bank? Come on Scarborough, save the Futurist – not for today, but for the future!

True cost of dirty money

From: Angela Sykes, Street Lane, Roundhay, Leeds.

MOST people in the UK invest money in the country’s biggest banks and pension funds, but we have very little control over what they do with our money.

Every year, these companies pour billions of pounds into
coal, oil and gas extraction 
across the planet, pushing us ever closer to runaway climate change.

Dirty fossil fuel projects are often situated in poor countries, but instead of helping more people get access to electricity, all too often they make local people’s lives much worse by robbing them of their homes or polluting their land and water.

We need to cure our finance sector of its fossil fuel addiction, and as a first step banks and pension funds should be made to report the carbon emissions from the dirty energy projects they finance.

Only when their impact on the climate is made public will we have a chance of forcing them to reduce it.