YP Letters: Care homes pulled up on trivial matters

I FOUND the recent report of a care home being placed in special measures quite disturbing.

That the reasons being that “residents were left in communal areas unattended” (my exper-ience of visiting care homes was that they always were) and that “personal information was left on a trolley in a corridor”.

I live 50 miles away and don’t know the care home, but my guess is that it is a good care home and that residents would be better served if the inspectors had their clip boards and tick boxes taken off them at the door and were handed a pair of rubber gloves and put to work emptying bedpans and changing sheets.

It must be very dispiriting for the staff to be pulled up over such trivial matters.

From: Mary Hellawell, Cross Lane, Scarborough.

LOCAL hospitals downgraded, local health centres closed, care homes closed, hospital beds done away with. Who made these decisions?

The NHS trusts mostly, run by businessmen with non-medical knowledge who then used consultants at large cost. No wonder the National Health Service is in a mess.

The population is growing year by year and elderly are living longer. We need more hospitals and care homes, and the staff for them, but we are short of money because the spending at the top for the ‘fat cat’ trust managers and their consultants is colossal. Add to that locums and bank nurses on high salaries.

There is no wonder that at grassroots there is a shortage of funding.

From: Nigel F Boddy, Fife Road, Darlington.

WE need all our A&E departments. None of us know where we might be when some terrible accident befalls us or where we might be if we suffer a heart attack.The proposals to reduce the number of A&Es in our region is ridiculous. We must have an average age per head of population greater than the national average as so many of our young people move south to find work.

We have the power to put an end to PFI through Acts of Parliament, just as our parents and grandparents must have used Acts of Parliament to create the NHS in the first place. End PFI and keep both A&Es. I don’t think you can find an A&E now west of Darlington until you reach Carlisle.

From: Mrs A Smith, Birstall, Batley.

I WISH to thank all the decdicated hard-working caring people I have met since September 2016. I have so much to thank the health service for – I do believe it is the best in the world. I most sincerely thank everyone I have had the pleasure to meet.

Lagoon could lead to debts

From: Neil Richardson, Kirkheaton.

ONE hundred MPs (The Yorkshire Post, February 15) want to push ahead with the tidal lagoon scheme in Swansea Bay. Yet the average output from this £1bn project – which apparently enjoys the highest subsidy per MWh in the world – is likely to be just five per cent of a gas-fired power station along the coast. Are these MPs also pushing the country even deeper into debt?

Hypocrisy on smoking

From: D Webb, Rothwell.

MIKE Smith (The Yorkshire Post, February 14) calls smoking “a lifestyle-choice”, others might say a death-style choice. Is it a choice at all, or just an addiction? I think the latter. The Government allows tobacco products to be sold, then spends millions telling you not to use them which tells you a lot about the Government.

Racism over food bank

From: J Hutchinson, Kirkbymoorside, York.

THE comments (The Yorkshire Post, February 14) about a food bank being ‘too white’ are the most racist I have read in quite a while. If I was to say something was ‘too Muslim’, ‘too Asian’ or ‘too black’, I would soon be reprimanded for my discrimination.

Root of their indecision

From: Eddie Peart, Broom Crescent, Rotherham.

CONGRATULATIONS on Joe Root being appointed captain of the England Test team (The Yorkshire Post, February 16). One national paper said he was unveiled on a grey afternoon at Headingley; in another paper it was a sunny afternoon. Here we go again. The papers in London cannot make up their minds.

Pride in our youth opera

From: Brian A Hollingsworth, Leeds.

I WAS fortunate to see Leeds Youth Opera perform Les Miserables (School Edition) at the Carriageworks Theatre. It was a fantastic show. To see these young people act and sing as they did, Leeds should be proud of everyone involved. Congratulations to all.

Don’t move post office

From: Coun M Walton, Mercel Avenue, Armthorpe, Doncaster.

I WOULD like to object to the proposed closure of the main Post Office in Doncaster, to be moved to the local WH Smith. This asset stripping will only be beneficial to the “fat cats” at the top of the Post Office. I can’t see the service provided being improved by being crammed into the WH Smith.