SICK TROPHIES OF SERIAL KILLER TOBIN
MEMENTOS THE SICK BEAST KEPT
by publishing those images again, someone may recognise an item which could lead us to other victims. “It’s highly unlikely Tobin first killed two women in 1991 and then waited until 2006. “We believe he started killing much younger, possibly as early as the 60s in Scotland. He moved around a lot.” The source added: “Peter Tobin was also a burglar and some of the items may be from houses he targeted but we also believe they are pieces he kept that belonged to his victims. “We showed the jewellery to every family of women we believed may have been victims of his but nobody claimed anything. We also couldn’t find any evidence to tie him to any of the cases but, without a shadow of a doubt, he killed more.” Operation Anagram – set up to investigate Tobin’s life – involved eight UK police forces and generated 3000 documents and 6000 lines of inquiry. Bank accounts were traced and police discovered the killer had owned about 120 cars. He had used more than 30 aliases and dozens of mobile phones. Detectives, led by former chief superintendent David Swindle, narrowed it down to about nine unsolved murders and disappearances but the probe was wound down in 2011. Detective Superintendent Suzanne Chow said: “While we have no current active lines of investigation, we welcome any information from the public in relation to the activities of Tobin.”
It’s highly unlikely Tobin first killed two women in 1991 and then waited until 2006 POLICE SOURCE
NURSES are missing out on overtime work as vaccinators because shifts are being snapped up by dentists and pharmacists chasing a “Klondike gold rush” of bumper payments.
Highly qualified medical professionals were initially asked to help deliver jags amid fears there might not be enough staff to deliver Scotland’s vaccination programme while hospitals were full with Covid patients.
But nurses who were trained for the work are now unable to secure shifts – and those who do can expect to earn a fraction of some colleagues.
Unions slammed the “two-tier” system which sees nurses paid about £12 an hour while those classed as independent contractors such as pharmacists and GPs can receive £230 per 3.5-hour session, equivalent to £65.71 an hour.
The discrepancy in pay is said to have left nurses feeling demoralised.
A source said: “We’ve just gone through nine months of hell where we’ve had to keep the pharmacies open every day. We’re constantly on the verge of not having enough people because people are self-isolating and the policy intention was that by doing it this way we could manage the number of staff we give to the NHS to vaccinate.
“Instead. we’ve got locums cancelling all their bookings because the board is paying them £66 an hour. It’s outrageous and it’s destabilised our workforce.
“I would expect them to be saying to pharmacists, dentists and so on, ‘We’re desperate, can you send people?’ only when they’ve run out of nurses.
“But the nurses are all going bananas because they can’t get shifts. The reason is because the locum pharmacists, locum opticians and locum dentists have booked themselves up in perpetuity in the Klondike gold rush.”
Asked about the issue at her media briefing yesterday, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: “I said in parliament this is something I have asked to be looked at to see if there is anything we need to do. I don’t want any healthcare worker feeling as if they are not being valued for the incredibly important job they are doing.”
A leaked memo from the Scottish Government to all health board bosses sent earlier this month stated that “no group of staff should be given access to shifts in advance of other groups”.
It said overtime should be offered to permanent NHS staff, NHS bank staff and independent contractors “on a fair and equitable basis” with “limits placed on the ability of any individual to block book shifts”.
The document added that only pharmacists “who are the owner of a pharmacy business” will qualify for the £230 rate, excluding locum pharmacists.
Locum dentists and optometrists could continue to be paid the £230 rate but those who are permanent members of staff “within dental or optometry practices” will be limited to NHS band 5 or band 3 rates, it said.
In relation to nurses, the memo also states that from now on permanent NHS employees who accept vaccinator shifts will be paid at their NHS banding so they are not “disincentivised from accepting shifts which may incur a lower rate of pay than the staff member’s substantive rate” – meaning some will be paid more than others.
Willie Duffy, regional organiser for health at Unison, said: “Everybody thought we weren’t going to have enough people to do vaccinations, and they panicked.
“But we’re now in a position where we have more than enough staff.
“We’ve got thousands who have returned at the call of the Government, who at cost to themselves did the training to be vaccinators and are now not being used.”
The Scottish Government said: “We have become aware that, due to a misunderstanding of national guidelines, some individual pharmacists participating in the programme have been paid the incorrect rate.
“We are actively looking into this matter, and updated guidance will be issued shortly, reaffirming the existing position.
“All staff employed to work on the programme are paid in accordance with nationally set terms and are working to agreed job roles.”
“What gets you through when it’s tough is a combination of the people around you who are working equally as hard – the nursing staff, doctors, cleaners, porters. Every professional who works here is giving it their very best during every shift that they work. “You have an obligation to do the best for the people around you by working together and supporting each other but on other side of that is a patient and a family. For them, that patient is the most important person in their world. “Doing anything less than your
The most difficult time I’ve had in 10 years as a doctor
With PPE you can’t show via your face that you care GEESH JAYASEKERA ON A YEAR ON COVID WARDS
best is not an option. As well as our colleagues, those are the people we don’t want to let down.
“For me professionally, the hardest part has been having to speak to and deal with patients who are severely unwell and have those conversations when someone is dying, both with the patient themselves and their relatives. It’s always been difficult to have those conversations. It never gets easier.
“Even after being a doctor for the last 10 years these conversations are still extremely hard – it’s not a part of the job that gets easier with time.
“With Covid, dealing with situations where dying patients who had been previously fit and well involved an added layer of difficulty.
“Wearing PPE also made delivering that kind of information really difficult, when you couldn’t show through your facial expressions that you cared about what was happening to that patient.
“It was also hard to have those conversations over the phone with relatives because you would want to deliver this kind of news in person.
“Also, the fact that the conversations were so much more frequent took a toll. We were having these difficult conversations several times a day.
“A lot of other NHS workers, like myself, are from outside Scotland or from different countries and we haven’t been able to travel to see our families for a long time.
“My parents live in Sri Lanka and I haven’t seen them in 18 months. I think the enhanced pressure at work and the pressures of life away from work that everyone is facing have also been difficult.
“But we have to be resilient and continue but that can feel really hard at times, emotionally and physically, because it can be exhausting.
“Hopefully the compliance with public health restrictions and the vaccinations will give us some light at the end of this long tunnel. We are all hoping for that.
“Hopefully we will come out stronger because of the experience we have been through and because of what we have learned in fighting Covid.
“The good things are seeing patients who have been severely unwell get better and leave hospital. That’s what we are always working towards.
“Survival is obviously the most important thing for us but in situations where death is inevitable, it is extremely important to make the process of dying a comfortable one through the involvement of family and palliative care teams.
“It is the most difficult time I have faced in my years as a doctor. A number of patients and their families come to mind when I think back. They will stay in my mind for a long time.”