On the Hunt for an NHS apology
After reading Jeremy Hunt’s comments about NHS staff “knowing what they signed up for”, I wonder if he would say the same if he’d had a relative waiting for treatment in the back of an ambulance or a hospital corridor?
My experience of the service provided by doctors and nurses has been excellent. My husband suffered with dilated cardiomyopathy and emphysema and had several admissions to our local hospital over a 20-year period.
He passed away in 2015 but had nothing but praise for his treatment. Our National Health Service is one of the best healthcare systems in the world and should be acknowledged for the sterling work it does.
Jacquelyn Allsop, Lowestoft, Suffolk
# As a small boy in the mid-1930s I remember the days before the NHS when the doctor would have charged my dad most of a day’s wages to treat one of us. So I am in absolute accord with amazing nurse Aileen Coomber when she warns us all about the danger to our precious public NHS from vicious Tory covert privatisation and intentional underfunding (Mirror, Feb 10). We urgently need a Labour government to put an end to this crisis and God help us if nurse Aileen’s and my own pre-war memories of healthcare ever become reality again.
Bob Pulham, Leighon-Sea, Essex
# The problem with Jeremy Hunt’s view that medical staff “knew they would have pressurised moments” isn’t helped by the fact that he isn’t on their side.
I bet he doesn’t have a pressurised moment considering where he was recently when the march was on – at a spa hotel. A minister in a job that doesn’t protect or stand up for the department he is supposed to be running doesn’t deserve to be in such an important position.
Geoff Willmetts, Bridgwater, Somerset
# If people think Jeremy Hunt will apologise for the debacle in the NHS over winter, dream on. Why would a man who has created a huge dip in morale, forced contracts on junior doctors and deliberately underfunded the NHS apologise? And if people think Hunt will be replaced by our weak PM then they can dream some more.
The only way we can be rid of people like Hunt is through the ballot box – as soon as we can, because if we get another five years of this there will be no more NHS.
Brian Scully, Wigan
# I worked for the NHS nearly all my life and can remember all the disputes about working conditions.
In the late 1970s we went on numerous marches to save our jobs from outside companies that cut wages. Now NHS workers are doing the same. Both times it was a Tory Government in charge.
We must all stick together and fight for a better health service for both staff and patients.
Shirley Crisp, Devizes, Wilts
# So, Mick Rutland thinks Churchill helped found the NHS (Madeuthink, Feb 7). In 1946, he spoke vehemently against the proposed new health service and was vitriolic in his criticism of Nye Bevan, its founder. He may have changed his tune in a speech in 1950, saying it “is too good to destroy”, probably out of political expediency. This particular leopard was never averse to changing his spots when it suited.
Ed Tilbury, Buckhurst Hill, Essex
# Privatisation does not work. Please let the voters see sense and vote these numbskulls out at the next election.
Chris Torode, Catterick, North Yorks