The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Stop bashing the NHS, we’re lucky to have it
Sir, – I’m getting really sick of all the NHS bashing in today’s media in Scotland.
In our local hospital, Ninewells, there are many people doing marvellous jobs under pressures that you and I can only imagine.
Day in, night out, they look after thousands of people every week.
Recently I had the misfortune to contract biliary sepsis; my transplanted kidney was close to complete failure.
I’m only able to write this because the staff at Ninewells quickly diagnosed what was going on and spent the next 10 days treating and caring for me.
They pulled me back from the brink.
They wouldn’t say that they did anything unusual – faced with a sick patient, they just get on with it – despite all the hurtful nonsense being published around them.
It is high time the toxic relationship between the government and the press ceased. With every single one of the 862 beds in the hospital occupied by a sick person, they need our support, not sniping.
Instead we need to concentrate on continually getting out the message that those with coughs and sneezes are better off at home, rather than putting further pressure on the system.
There are a lot of nasty bugs in any hospital and by going there with trivial issues you run a real chance of getting one.
Publicise the message that the public should stop putting the ambulance service under extra pressure: file down your own broken nails, find your own way home. Resist that last drink.
It will do no good to mourn our health service when it’s gone or privatised. Do you want to wait until some conglomerate decides whether it’s profitable to save you or not? Alan Morris. 72 Newton Crescent, Carnoustie.