Hear All Sides

HEALTH SERVICES

THERE are so many bad reports regarding hospital and NHS services in this country.

I worked for the NHS from 1948 until 1990, having had periods of leave in between. As I look back, I have no complaints regarding working or being a patient in hospital.

On New Year's Eve 2001, my daughter was admitted to a ward at Bishop Auckland Hospital where she was seen at once. Doctors, sisters and the teams gave her all the care and attention anyone could have.

My husband and I were shown respect and help throughout her 18 days in hospital. May I thank all the staff and team on Ward 11. - Joy Woodward, Bishop Auckland.

A GREAT deal has been said about the National Health Service in recent weeks, but my personal experience has been of timely and good treatment at Shotley Bridge General Hospital, which was downgraded to a community hospital a few years ago.

More recently, my wife received timely and excellent treatment at Dryburn Hospital just prior to its closure.

However, when Shotley Bridge General was to be downgraded, the residents of Derwentside were told that a new hospital was to be built at Durham which would cater for all their A&E and major medical needs.

Now we find that, after only a short period in service, the new hospital at Durham can't cope and waiting lists are growing longer.

Surely the growing waiting lists at the new Durham hospital should come as no surprise to the administrators responsible for the provision of health care when this new hospital, built to replace all the facilities at Dryburn and primary care and A&E at Shotley Bridge, has fewer beds than Dryburn alone.

Recently it was disclosed that the South Moor community hospital was also to be closed. Fortunately, as a result of intervention by North Durham MP Kevan Jones, beds there are to be used at both South Moor and Shotley Bridge community hospitals to alleviate some of the problems at the new hospital at Durham.

One wonders why the administrators responsible could not think this out for themselves.

It would appear to me that the problems with the NHS in this area are not with the doctors, nurses and other staff responsible for the provision of the medical services, but with the administrators of the NHS Trusts and health authorities. - T Pattinson, Stanley.

I AM a member of the Labour Party, which I declare to prevent accusations of political bias.

During the last five years, my wife and I have been treated by the National Health Service following serious life-threatening problems. We have regularly received treatment at Darlington Memorial, North Tees, South Cleveland and Bishop Auckland Hospitals, and can only say that we have the greatest admiration for the staff, from consultants to non-medical staff.

We have met hundreds of satisfied and grateful people attending appointments, and have yet to come face to face with any criticism of the NHS. Even the massive "new build" programmes at all four hospitals have been accepted as necessary inconveniences, even though it meant car parking problems and perhaps further to walk.

Of course, it is understandable for some to get facts out of proportion when loved ones or colleagues are forced to take their place in the "queue" for treatment.

Years of underfunding cannot be corrected, even in five years. But the fact that now massive new injections of cash are being put into the NHS is there for all to see.

Perhaps, if more support was given to the NHS by the media, it would do wonders for the morale of those wonderful dedicated workers we meet during every visit. - F Robson, Heighington.

AN ill, confused and frightened 94-year-old woman is alleged to have said that she did not wish to be tended by a coloured nurse and immediately Tony Blair's press machine swings into action against her.

It may have been a communications problem, due to the NHS recruiting foreign nurses with a poor grasp of English. It may have been due to this woman's upbringing in the early 20th Century when coloured people were rarely seen.

Yet Mr Blair now defends public service workers, people he once claimed were part of the dark, reactionary forces of conservatism.

A strange man our Prime Minister. - Raymond M Kelly, Chester-le-Street.

IF Rose Addis, NHS victim, did not want the nurses to touch her, then why all the fuss of the daughter running the hospital down?

Surely, if they had used force, then they would have been more wrong.

If the Conservatives cannot see this, then there is no need to bring Tony Blair into it.

He has not got a magic wand, but it looks like the daughter of Rose had a very large spoon for stirring it. - L Thorn, Sedgefield.

COUNCIL SERVICES

SO, according to Councillor Williams, the Dolphin Centre and Civic Theatre cannot survive without large subsidies from council taxpayers.

It must therefore be time for him to follow the example of his guru Tony Blair and go for a bit of PFI.

Perhaps, he should sell off these two costly facilities, plus the Arts Centre, and remove these millstones from around the public's neck.

Alternatively, the users of all these facilities should be made to pay the going rate to keep them afloat.

It is grossly unfair to expect those council taxpayers who, for various reasons, cannot or choose not to use these facilities to subsidise those who do use them, including many people who don't even live in the borough.

Cinemas, fitness centres, public transport and the like have to survive without council tax subsidies. Let's see these money-guzzling council establishments do the same. - RK Bradley, Darlington.