YP Letters: Why penalise elderly for lifetime of responsible behaviour?

KARL Sheridan (The Yorkshire Post, May 10) is so right to protest because the older generations are blamed for the problems now facing the younger generations.

Now some way into my ninth decade, I, too, was brought up to act responsibly with my finances and never spend money I didn’t have on things I didn’t need.

I, too, do not understand why the lucky chance that the value of my house has vastly increased is a reason for recrimination, while putting seven crosses in the right boxes on a lottery ticket brings a shower of praise.

I would guess that I am some 10 years older than Mr Sheridan and therefore that much nearer the next discrimination against the responsible citizen.

I wish to spend my last few years quietly and soberly in the love of my surrounding family. I only have a small bungalow and modest savings but I wish to pass them on to that same family.

But unless I waste the lot on unneccessary luxuries or pay some smart accountant to show me how to salt it away, I will be unable to do so if I have to go into a care home, where I will be charged a four-figure sum each month because I have chosen to save my money.

Worse still, if I develop dementia, my relatives will effectively “lose” me and their inheritance at the same time. This already happens to thousands of families.

Why should the careful and responsible citizen be discriminated against in this way? If I had spent my life in petty crime, demonstrating daily by my actions a contempt for society and my fellow citizens, my care in old age would be provided with no charge – no questions asked.

And as I await my fate, as an English taxpayer I will continue to subsidise, through the totally outdated Barnett Formula, free care homes for people in Scotland with much more money than I have.

From: Peter Hyde, Driffield.

THE whole problem with the NHS is the multiple layers of management are not only expensive but also inefficient. Top managers now earn almost twice as much as top consultants and surely that can’t be right.

Various departments in various hospitals are being closed for the lack of medical staff, but they can still manage to maintain the level of management staff without difficulty.

I am now almost 86 and will always have the greatest gratitude to the surgeon and 
staff of Castle Hill who carried me through an operation for colonic cancer.