Hospital volunteer crisis

I start this column with a plea.

I am informed by the Royal Voluntary Service, which used to be known as the WRVS, that there is a dire shortage of volunteers working in Monklands Hospital.

If you have any spare time can you please volunteer? With the stresses and strains on our National Health Service these days, volunteers still play a vital role in providing different types of non-medical support in our hospitals.

Despite a record amount of money being spent and the highest recorded levels of staffing since the NHS was formed in 1948, the ever-increasing demands placed on our health service mean it needs all the help it can get.

As well as helping others, volunteering is good for those who take part.

I have met many people who have felt lonely and without enough to keep themselves occupied after retiring.

Often they tell me they would like to “put something back into the community”.

I advise them to become a volunteer. That way they get to meet people and make new friends as well as make a significant contribution to their local communities.

As well as our hospitals, there are lots of other organisations which rely on volunteers, such as the Citizens Advice Bureaux, charities, foodbanks, churches, etc.

Without the work of volunteers many services on which we depend wouldn’t be able to function.

On a separate matter, I am very concerned at the on-going allegations of corruption within North Lanarkshire Council.

In particular, the refusal of the council leadership to publish a secret report into corruption within the organisation is outrageous and totally unacceptable.

The cash the council spends is public money.

It is raised through the council tax, business rates and grants from the Scottish Government.

All of that is taxpayers’ money, much of it paid for by people who aren’t on the film star salaries given to senior managers within the council and many of whom are on the minimum wage.

These taxpayers are entitled to know how their money is spent. Every penny should be properly accounted for.

It is therefore incumbent on the council leadership to publish this secret report, tell us who, if anyone, has been pocketing taxpayers’ money illegally and confirm that everybody who has broken the law will be brought to book.

Volunteers still play a vital role in providing different types of non-medical support in our hospitals