Letters: Potential dangers of more NHS cutbacks

My confusion stems from Dr. Alasdair Corfield’s plea not to bring seriously ill children to the Vale of Leven’s Minor Injuries Unit (MIU).

The senior emergency medicine consultant gave examples of the kind of things the MIU can treat, such as insect bites, cuts, grazes and limb injuries like a broken ankle or wrist.

I am delighted that the good doctor regards a broken ankle as minor – to me it would seem potentially crippling!

We are also urged to make sure we know where to receive safe and appropriate treatment. So we now have to be clinicians with a thorough knowledge of which treatment is ‘appropriate’ and where to get it. Naturally, time, cost and transport availability are not taken into account.

I am sorry, but this is yet another example of services being cut back at the Vale of Leven Hospital. It is only a few weeks ago since doctors protested over closures of the out-of-hours GP service at the Vale.

This continued lancing of essential and desirable services at the Vale by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (GG&C) has to stop. Travelling all the way with a sick person to the RAH in Paisley is both costly and potentially dangerous.

SNP ministers have consistently failed patients in the catchment of the VoL Hospital. It’s time for them to focus on retaining and enhancing health services for local people and stop hiding behind the Health Board.

Finlay Craig,

Cove

ON BEHALF of the Dumbarton Constituency Association of the SNP I would wish to extend our thanks for all the work which Councillor James Robb has given the party, his constituents and the community he has served.

When James was elected to the council in 2007 he was the first SNP councillor to represent Helensburgh, which was a significant moment for us as it coincided with the election of the first SNP government in Holyrood.

His efforts to win the seat in an area which had been stony ground for us established an enduring SNP presence from which others have now reaped the benefit.

His energetic approach to the role has been regularly recorded in the Advertiser on an almost weekly basis, while his attention to constituents’ issues has gained him a respect from many who would not normally be his political allies.

Your readers will recall his robust campaign against school closures, the local referendum initiative which delivered the transformation of Colquhoun Square and his steadfast and diligent support for the pupils and parents of Hermitage Academy.

His professional career provided him with a unique forensic ability to dissect and expose the financial flummery which has been a regrettable feature of much which the current council administration produces.

As recent reports have shown there is a deep concern about how Argyll and Bute Council is managed strategically and politically and we in the SNP will strive to follow Councillor Robb’s example by being in the vanguard of change.

Graeme McCormick,

Convener SNP Dumbarton Constituency Association,

Arden

I HAVE been reading several letters of complaint sent to various newspapers regarding local council charges for taking household or other rubbish for disposal, to the local tip.

Would someone explain to me how it is that Glen Fruin is frequently strewn with discarded mattresses, fridges, you name it?

This is within a mile from Helensburgh council tip, which charges nothing and is open all weekdays and Saturdays, manned by cheerful, helpful operatives.

I can only appeal to the fly-tippers not to blight such a beautiful place, and also to reflect on their own reaction should we all turn up one night and empty our wheelie bins up against their front door.

The same concept should be shown to the day trippers, who regularly dump the remains of discarded picnics.

Surely it can’t be beyond their intelligence to bring along a bin liner and take the debris home instead

Luss

IT’S instructive that the Scottish Tory leader has said “I’ve never been caught out”. It displays the arrogance of someone who thinks they are untouchable and believes they can get away with any contradictory comment or broken promise.

She has a record of someone who says one thing and then does a complete U-turn or has previously done the complete opposite of what she claims.

An indication of how she thinks she can get away with double speak is when she told BBC Newsnight on October 24, 2011 that she had “lived and worked my entire life in Scotland, never been anywhere else, never wished to be. I’m Scottish to my bones”.

So, how come she applied to be the Tory candidate in the English seat of Bromsgrove in 2010?

This is the politician who promised before the 2014 independence referendum that “voting no means we stay in the EU”, but now she is backing a Prime Minister who could not only take us out the EU but the entire single market. How does she reconcile her promise to voters to keep Scotland in the EU with her unconditional support for a PM who could impose hard Brexit?

Also before the 2014 referendum she signed a pledge that a No vote would mean “Power lies with the Scottish People” and said Scotland was an ‘equal partner’ in the UK. Yet now she allows a Prime Minister that the UK hasn’t voted for from a party Scotland doesn’t vote for to signal she will ignore the majority of representatives elected by those Scottish people. A Tory party that still has less support than the low point for Margaret Thatcher in 1987.

But it is on the Brexit elephant in the room where she now thinks she can get away with letting Theresa May impose hard Brexit on Scotland. She now calls it an “opportunity”, but before the EU referendum was singing a different tune.

She said that “there will be a large economic cost of Brexit”; that it was based on “lies” and “fantasy economics” and families “couldn’t afford” it; and that thousands of Scottish jobs are “reliant” on exports to the EU.

If that was the case before the June 23, 2016, surely she believes it is still the case now? If not, why not?

It’s a mark of Ruth Davidson as a politician that she thinks she can tell the public anything and get away with it. Maybe the public can take the opportunity in the local elections this May to send her the message that they won’t be taken as fools by an arrogant Tory party which thinks they can do what they like to Scotland and people will just take it.

Andrew Stuart,

Glasgow

I AM calling on your readers to join the fight against heart disease by signing up to the British Heart Foundation’s (BHF) 54-mile London to Brighton Bike Ride on June 18.

As Europe’s oldest charity bike ride the event attracts tens of thousands of participants from all corners of the UK each year, including Scots.

With 12 weeks to go to the event we are only half way to raising our target of £3 million to fund lifesaving heart research so we are encouraging as many people to sign up as possible.

I am also pleased to say that for the first time in the event’s history the use of electronic bikes will be permitted this year. I hope this will encourage more riders of all cycling abilities to get in the saddle and take on the challenge.

Families, friends and colleagues can enjoy a fun day out together whilst cycling through some of the South East’s most picturesque counties.

Our London to Brighton Bike Ride is an achievable challenge for all cyclists; from the newbies to the experienced; the cautious to the confident, the fast to the fall behinds and both the solo riders and the team players.

Heart and circulatory disease still kills one in four and affects seven million people in the UK. In Scotland alone about 15,500 people die each year because of it, tearing families apart. The BHF will continue fighting against these devastating conditions until we live in a world where nobody dies prematurely because of them.

The event has been running for more than 40 years now and in that time 814,000 cyclists have raised over £65 million for our lifesaving research.

Thanks to our studies huge progress has been made in saving lives, and the number of deaths from heart and circulatory disease in the UK has halved since the 1960s. But there is still much more we urgently need to do which is why I’d like to urge readers to join the fight today.

You can easily sign up for the London to Brighton Bike Ride, sponsored by Tesco and Jaffa, by visiting bhf.org.uk/L2B

Look forward to seeing you there!

Shonali Rodrigues,

Head of Events,

British Heart Foundation