Readers' Letters: 'Learnings' aren't enough, action must be taken over hospital dangers
More must be done to protect NHS patients, says reader
Jackie Baillie highlights the Government failings to heed the lessons on the Vale of Leven Hospital infections, as evidenced in Lord MacLean’s report of 2014 (Perspective, 4 February).
Yet, these lessons seem to have been overlooked in the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital fiasco, despite whistleblowers’ concerns. Instead of calling for the SNP to learn lessons once again over this matter, Jackie Baillie should be pressing the Scottish government to demonstrate the lessons they learned by setting out a clear action plan. Saying you’ve learnt lessons isn’t enough. It’s demonstrating what you’ve done as a result which is crucial.
Fiona Garwood, Edinburgh
Single answer
Murdo Fraser MSP asks why the SNP Government does not do more to help the hospitality industry (Perspective, 4 February). On the same Scotsman spread Jackie Baillie MSP asks why the SNP ignored an earlier report on hospital infections.
The answer, sadly, is that the SNP has only one real aim, and that is constitutional change – all else is subordinate.
William Ballantine, Bo'ness, West Lothian
BBC insults
As a licence payer, I take exception to the comments made by BBC Scotland's Hayley Valentine and Luke McCullough when they attended Holyrood for the Scottish Broadcasting Inquiry last month. It has become the fashion for corporate types to sneer and posture on such occasions. It's as if any suggestion of public accountability is an affront to their (inflated) idea of their own importance. This was no exception. “What we did was, in my view, a relatively small schedule change though clearly it's attracted a lot of noise,” said Ms Valentine when asked about the debacle of Radio Scotland's abrupt dismissal of two of Scotland's best-loved broadcasters, Iain Anderson and Billy Sloan. Noise? Is that what she thinks of the views of Radio Scotland's listeners?
More than 15,000 listeners signed a petition asking for the broadcasters to be reinstated pending a consultation on the changes. More than 300 cultural figures in Scotland, including Sir Ian Rankin, James Yorkston and Mercury Prize nominee Jacob Alon spoke out against the sackings. Jim Kerr of Simple Minds described the uncalled-for revamp as “a spectacular own goal”. The comments online, every day, speak volumes about how much Anderson and Sloan are missed and what poor replacements we have in their stead.
But to those in the plush offices at BBC Scotland HQ, that’s not feedback, it’s just noise, to be ignored. It’s high time whoever pulls the strings at the BBC’s Nations and Regions stepped in to resolve this and put these DJs back on the station. Because right now it appears that listening to feedback from licence payers is not on Radio Scotland’s agenda.
Bob Watson, Lanark
Smart card?
Two foreign card firms together handle more than 95 per cent of UK card transactions by value. The UK Treasury should introduce a state-backed public alternative digital payment card to replace physical cash, combining the convenience of digital payments with the vendor zero-fee, privacy-oriented benefits of cash.
As cash usage drops a sovereign “Treasury Card” would ensure universal free digital access, preventing vendors from being burdened by high private card transaction fees. This immediate settlement card would have no overdraft facilities (operating on a “spend what you have” basis), supporting financial inclusion and aiding budgeting. By removing reliance on profit-driven, private banking infrastructure, the government would ensure that all citizens, including the unbanked, can transact digitally without fees, mimicking the inclusivity of legal tender while reducing the costs and security risks of cash handling.
Doug Clark, Currie, Edinburgh
Safety lock
Jane Lax claims women in hospitals are having to lock their bedroom doors to keep out marauding men posing as women (Letters, 4 February). This claim is apparently based on comments made by the Patient Safety Commissioner Karen Titchener to a Holyrood Committee.
The Commissioner told the committee she did not want to get into the gender realignment debate and she also warned the committee that transwomen have rights as well. She had serious concerns about patients locking themselves in rooms. I would also have concerns.
Having spent four decades designing hospitals it’s news to me that hospital bedroom doors are locked. That would mean that if the patient has a seizure with the door locked then staff will be denied access to resuscitate them. And putting an external release on the door lock would defeat the purpose of having a lock. For those reasons I have never put a lock on the main door leaf because to do so would pose a threat to the patient's safety.
Robert Menzies, Falkirk
Shock views
So the ScotRail electrical bolt picture displayed at an event last week is a fascist symbol in some people's eyes? If so we will need to get Health & Safety to replace all the electrical warning signs on sub stations, electrical cabinets in businesses, or even in our own domestical electrical cupboards.
And while we're at it, can we cancel the late great David Bowie, who wore a similar sign on his face in the Seventies?
I sometimes wish people wouldn't be so wooden headed – or maybe we should just take the lightnig bolt symbol for what it is ...an indication that electricity behind a cover
J Moore, Glasgow
Truth denied
The 1990s X-Files sci-fi series tells tales of the paranormal whereby evidence is often difficult to establish, and cases very difficult to explain. There is a similarity with the Epstein Files, a series of pieces of evidence impossible to explain scientifically without the full facts in the majority of cases. They point to serial exploitation by the playboy establishment but it’s impossible to get at the whole truth. In the main, only evidence that is circumstantial appears to have been released to protect the guilty.
The exception appears to be files on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, Sarah Ferguson and Peter Mandelson, for whom there are consequences. The real loser is Keir Starmer who, bizarrely, appointed Peter Mandelson UK Ambassador to the US despite dubious dealings that led to Mandelson’s nickname “The Prince of Darkness”. Starmer knew something of Mandelson’s association with convicted paedophile Epstein. The Epstein files are largely emasculated in their incomplete and heavily redacted form and that’s the way the US Government wants it. Only an administration promulgating true justice will publish the evidence in full. As they said in the X-Files, “the truth is out there”. Until then the rich and powerful will be protected and the vulnerable and gullible will be marginalised. Victims deserve full justice. With victims daily in Ukraine, the Sudan and Gaza, with deaths of dozens of innocent women and children, Epstein should not be allowed to overshadow all this.
Neil Anderson, Edinburgh
Support posties
While it might suit the argument of Jane Lax (Letters, 4 February) to suggest it was just the SNP that did not support the Prostitution (Offences and Support) (Scotland) legislation, it was also not supported by Scottish Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Green Party.
The political parties that gave us the Postal Services Act, and in coalition with Lib Dems sold off Royal Mail, chose not to listen to sex workers the same way they didn't listen to posties. The people who actually do the job, whether sex workers or posties, should be the ones to tell politicians how it is, not the other way round.
At the moment, out of headlines, the Communication Workers Union is asking it's members to contact their MP about issues such as equalisation of contracts and implementing USO reform, as well as the culture at Royal Mail.
The Scottish Labour Party may think that the most important issue is saving the NHS but in this area a reliable bus service would not go amiss and there are many key services that are not the NHS, believe it or not.
It might be better politics putting through the Prostitution (Offences and Support) (Scotland) Bill but it needs to able to be practically enforced and protect sex workers, not put them at risk.
I will leave these political parties to play to their supporters and voters on this and the transgender prisons issue while most folk realise the latter makes up a small percentage of population.
Peter Ovenstone, Peterhead, Aberdeenshire
Hill to climb
The importance of speech is well explained by the speech therapists such as Glenn Carter (Perspective, 3 February) as a foundation for education and for forming positive relationships, but much can be done to assist young children.
It's a weekday forenoon and the young mums with their baby buggies are boarding the train at Airdrie. By the time Coatbridge Sunnyside is reached, a toddler has got “girnie”. A mum produces a “soother” but before this can be put in his mouth, a granny passenger intervenes: “Tak the wean oot the buggy, an' gie him a cuddle on yer knee so he can see oot the windae! Talk tae him aboot whit ye see oot there! Nae 'soothers' in the daytime, mind – they'll no' let the wean learn tae speak!”
The response? “Ah'll no' bother, we're jist gettin' aff!”
(Dr) I A Glen, Airdrie, North Lanarkshire
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