Is our health service still fit for purpose?

IN AUGUST, I fell and smashed my left hip. Paramedics immediately took me, in agony, to the trauma ward. I was told I would be operated on the following day, but it wasn’t until 3pm a day later. I never met my surgeon and no one seemed to know who had operated. I found out later I had been his last patient and he had flown back to Italy. The long waiting times for ops are followed rigidly: if you aren’t near death, you’re always at the bottom of the list so no one can guarantee an operating or discharge time. So I lay in agony for almost two full days as I wasn’t an ‘emergency’. I spent ten days in hospital on my first visit and then went to a rehab clinic until my hip became swollen and I had to return to hospital which meant another wait before I was finally operated on again. In the NHS there are procedures to be followed, and I couldn’t be discharged until I’d had an ultrasound and blood tests . As it was a bank holiday weekend, there was only a skeleton staff. I was fit and healthy and taking up a bed in a trauma unit but as I wasn’t an emergency I was bottom of the list. During a total of 15 days in NHS trauma wards I heard the same phrases over and again: ‘You are not considered an emergency, you are on the list, but if an emergency comes in you will lose your slot.’ It seems extraordinary with our 24/7 lifestyle hospitals come to a standstill at the weekend. I experienced this in both of my stays. I appreciate the care I received from the nurses and doctors: they should be given recognition for the hard job they do in terrible conditions, and I have no complaints about my care. It is the NHS itself that is broken. YVETTE D. STANDRING,

Letcombe Regis, Oxon.

THIS week I was discharged from Oldham Royal hospital (part of Pennine Acute Foundation Trust). I fell and broke my hip on October 7. I was operated on the following morning and was given a new half hip joint. This is a super hospital in every way, and I wish to express my thanks to every department I dealt with. The National health Service is fantastic, but it does not stop there because over the past two years I have been into the Silver heart Unit at Fairfield hospital, Bury, and also the heart Unit at Manchester Royal Infirmary. I am more than pleased with everyone concerned with the fantastic treatment I received. What was the cost to me? Nothing. When I read criticism, I wonder why. Why do some feel they must make their complaints public? There may be problems in parts of the country, but, for most, hearing of them doesn’t put them at their ease if they have to go into hospital.

DENNIS SHEPHERD, Rochdale, Gtr Manchester.