Ayrshire Beach mountain biking
NHSisavitalasset When I was Chair of Ayrshire and Arran Health Board I formed the highest regard for the NHS.
This was fully reaffirmed recently following my sustaining serious injuries in a cycling accident.
Thankfully residents of Longhill Avenue, Ayr, came to my immediate aid before I was rushed to A& E at Ayr Hospital. The skill and compassion of our truly wonderful NHS staff, at all levels, came into play.
Stabilised, I was taken to Crosshouse Hospital Ward 5A. The care I received from paramedics, porters, domestics, nursing assistants, nurses, doctors and consultants was exemplary throughout. I underwent major surgery by Mr Hislop, a Maxillofacial Consultant and his great team to repair 12 fractures to my face. All those involved in my care do this daily, under the constant threat of contracting coronavirus. Care, commitment, skill and bravery.
Yet these caring and committed NHS staff are often subjected to unwarranted and misguided public criticism and on occasions from a few politicians. This I find unjustified and unacceptable.
I acknowledge that sadly sometimes errors may occur but we should remember that our overworked NHS staff are only human and the human body itself is subject to variations.
Every unsuccessful outcome weighs heavily on them.
While with the NHS Board I found that from many thousands of procedures each year; many extremely complex, only a miniscule, if very regrettable, number did not turn out as intended.
I believe that statistically the NHS is the most efficient organisation in the United Kingdom bar none. It is most certainly the most professional and the most caring. If you really need it is there for you.
So lay off the criticism, talk up the NHS, encourage its dedicated staff and give thanks for it not just on Thursdays, as we did previously, but every single day of the year.
The NHS and those who serve in it are our most precious and vital asset. Professor George L Irving CBE, Redstones, St Leonards Road, Ayr. efficient and with proper and regular servicing would probably last much longer than they are being allowed to at the moment.
Ambulances and emergency vehicles would clearly have to be on a seperate regime.
So come on, let’s have a bit more common sense and get away from following the same old antiquated systems.
Name and address supplied Independentcouncil
That the flying of Palestinian flag above a South Ayrshire Council building - not by the council - does not surprise, says a lot about how local authorities have changed by being over politicised, and reminds how virtue signalling has become a core council activity.
Rainbow flags ( gay rights are protected by law) EU flags ( we’re out) and much more adorn Scottish public buildings, themselves surrounded by ancient inert statues that now inexplicably offend the over sensitive.
Yet our own contrary tribunes send their provost to totalitarian China where your facemasks are made by muslim slave labour.
They pass motions supporting Syrian immigrants when they cannot house their own.
They force feed the language of 471 souls on us all, whilst grudging all citizens access to independent advice.
They illegally and heartlessly close an adult day centre, and we pick up the fine for their incompetence.
They deny parents £ 150k free money from the Eat Out to Help
Out initiative because the staff just could not be bothered to administer it but pay themselves richly for underperforming.
They lose Belleisle House whilst progressing a golf academy that nobody wants save the councillor sponsor ..... at Belleisle!
And we await with no interest at all the outcome of a “consultation” on the Station Hotel, a building the council do not even own, whilst the foot of the town gap site, which they do own, lies forgotten apparently now a white goods dump!
For the record, the hotel questionnaire was shockingly amateurish if not insulting, with its leading questions - no model of best practice this. It’s time the cobbler stuck to the last because his weans - the residents of Ayr - are suffering from his neglect. With its term of office mercifully coming to a close, the pettiness and political posturing of this awful coalition has achieved nothing.
Absolutely nothing at all. Let’s have 28 independents next time. And no obfuscating virtue signalling - just let them be judged on results.
StationHotelsolution The final stages of the Feasibility Study on the Station Hotel are happening.
We have had a Dangerous Building Notice twice, we have had a Structural Engineers’ Survey, a Scottish Government Taskforce chaired by
NetworkRail which set up a Feasibility Study ( FS), then the Taskforce Chair passed to South Ayrshire Council.
As the FS lacked any remit for Conservation and Environmental Issues, South Ayrshire Council had to incorporate that.
They have also added a public consultation. SAC have had to pick up a responsibility that has been neglected by bodies which had the resources and capacity to deal with this long ago.
They need outside support if they are to solve the issues. Instead it seems quite possible that more money will be spent on a new glass and steel station and other changes.
We would all like to see a new owner as the easiest solution but the years have passed and time is running out for that. A solution will be about money.
The Government will pay for any new station so if there is no new owner why not spend the money on what will last? Esther Clark ( Chair Action Group), Ronaldshaw Park, Ayr
Reader Sue Limpitlaw, of Ayr , sent this picture of mountain biking taken from the Ballast bank in Troon. Send your pictures to news@ ayrshirepost. co. uk