TUESDAY’S issue of The Herald had an article raising questions about the principles that underpin the NHS in Scotland, and another suggesting that “private” – or commercial – health care is a necessity (“Top doctor calls for debate on NHS future”; Natasha Radmehr, “Private health care used to be a luxury. Now it feels like a necessity”).

I worked in London in the 1980s as a trainee neurosurgeon and I had patients in various hospitals.

I was in the ITU in Guy’s Hospital late one night to see my patient. Round another bed there was a group of doctors who I recognised as the senior trainees in various specialties – chest physicians, cardiologists, diabetologists and renal physicians. I stopped to speak to them.

They were gathered round the bed of an emaciated old man with long matted hair and beard, and skin encrusted with dirt. His appearance suggested a homeless vagrant. Some people would see him as “trash”.

He had multiple medical problems that required the combined expertise of the best young doctors in London. And that was what he was receiving – the best. That is what the NHS means to me, and that is the bench-mark that any restructuring of the NHS has to match.

Commercial medicine could never meet that standard and, indeed, a system that offers privileged access to the wealthy is the enemy of the principles that the NHS is founded on.
David Currie, Tarland, Aberdeenshire

A simple way of saving money

AND so the rhetoric on both sides continues: either doom and gloom from opposition parties or over-optimistic pledges of quick fixes from the Scottish government.

In the real world outside of Holyrood I was told that the waiting list for an audiology appointment in Glasgow was eight months, although only 40% hearing has advantages when listening to debates or question time in the Scottish parliament.

More worryingly, a friend was told that the waiting time for an urgent ECG was 46 weeks. What value in the term ‘urgent’?

A recent visit to my GP (it is still possible, and the service is excellent) resulted in my sitting in reception for ten minutes where a TV monitor showed the top 10 drug prescriptions.

They included items that could be bought in supermarkets for less than a pound – and almost all could be purchased for less than the administrative charge by pharmacists for making up prescriptions.

Significant savings could be achieved by GPs handing out the items themselves or giving a payment to patients to buy the items over the counter.

A simple idea that does not require hundreds of millions of pounds being spent on reorganising services.
Bill Eadie, Glasgow

Labouring over double standards?

HAVING read Brian Wilson’s article (“Democracy cannot be defined as a dictatorship by a nationalist minority”, November 29) it is reasonable to ask if he would apply the same standards to a Labour majority in the Commons after the next UK general election, based on around 40% of the vote.

If, to use Mr Wilson’s preferred yardstick, Labour was elected to government where “more than three-fifths of the vote was opposed” to Labour “whilst over a third did not vote at all”, would he question the legitimacy of such a Labour government?

His answer is evidently that he would not, as he says “there is nothing abnormal about this” as regards Angus Robertson’s 39% of votes cast in Edinburgh Central.

Nor, it seems, is there anything abnormal about successive UK governments being installed having achieved only a minority of the vote.

This puts Mr Wilson in the position of endorsing the legitimacy of every Conservative government over the last 60 years and more. But from a democratic perspective, minority rule seems, well, undemocratic.

It is at least plausible that Mr Wilson, and more certainly the Labour Party, would say something like “the people have spoken” even when Labour receives well under 50% of votes cast.

But would there be at least a hint of a double standard in endorsing a majority in the Commons, based on the UK’s first-past-the-post system, but not a majority under a proportional system in the Scottish parliament?

There, an appeal to votes cast and even votes not cast, is to be preferred.

Surely the underlying issue here is the UK electoral system. I am not confident, though, that Mr Wilson or the Labour Party will address that issue when it can work to Labour’s advantage even if, most of the time, it does not.
Alasdair Rankin, Edinburgh

Time for Sturgeon to take her leave

ARE we folks in Scotland simply going to be subjected to even more whining and anti-UK propaganda from the SNP, the so-called administration at the Scottish parliament?

They govern without a majority at Holyrood, and have to rely on the Green Party – which, incidentally is unelected – for support. And it is a fact that all sectors of Scotland’s administration are very much under-performing under this sad excuse for a government.

The SNP is obsessed with the idea of Scotland becoming independent of the UK. Just why is it that becoming a member of the EU is okay, but not remaining part of the UK, a Union it has been part of for over 300 years?

It must be remembered that the SNP notably failed to persuade the electorate of Scotland at the referendum in 2014, and have agitated for a return match, ad nauseam, ever since.

As is common knowledge, they recently submitted their case for Scottish independence to the Supreme Court, and yet again lost the argument.

Once more they have had to be reminded that the Scotland Acts afford them no powers over such constitutional matters.

Thankfully, to the relief of the majority of most folks in Scotland, there is no way that the UK government at Westminster will agree to any further negotiations, or referenda, on the subject of Scottish independence.

Can I possibly suggest that this might be an appropriate time for Nicola Sturgeon to retire from the front-line of Scottish politics, and seek solace in warmer climes?
Robert I G Scott, Ceres, Fife

Another helping of cauld kale

IN reply to David Bone’s St Andrew’s Day letter in which he compares the Yes movement unfavourably to queuing for a steak-bake, I can only describe his letter and the letters which preceded it as being a load of cauld kale het again.
Ruth Marr, Stirling

Is this a voluntary union or not?

HAVING read the letters in yesterday’s Herald from the serried ranks of Union supporters, all I can ask them is, do they agree with their friends in the UK government that the Scottish nation is in a voluntary union with the rest of Britain?
Gordon Evans, Burnside, Rutherglen

Still a spurious comparison

ROBERT Murray (letters, November 30) quoted my previously published statement that comparison of Scotland with Quebec is spurious and pointed out that it was used by the SNP itself.

It does not matter who uses the comparison, it is still spurious. Perhaps Mr Murray should check the relevant facts.
Peter Dryburgh, Edinburgh

FM is like a cornered rat

HAVING painted herself into a corner on independence issues, Nicola Sturgeon has morphed into the proverbial cornered rat; increasingly didactic, dictatorial, condescending, dismissive and intolerant of those “non-believers” in the cause.

Meanwhile, Rome burns.

Aside from the sadly now-familiar list of her government’s catastrophic decisions and general incompetence, it is actually quite sad to see a genuinely talented and articulate politician devoting her talents to spinning us complete nonsense.

We deserve better than this
Keith Swinley, Ayr

Mean and petty insults

NICOLA Sturgeon has presumably had to develop a very thick skin against all the barbs and insults that have come her way. Regardless of what lies in store for her in whatever new life she adopts once her Scottish political career comes to an end, she will surely not miss the mean and petty insults. It is a pity that many of your correspondents have to stoop so low.
S McDonald, Glasgow

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