THERE is so much bad news and there have been so many difficult stories about the NHS that I wish to share my excellent experience. I had my first cataract operation in early June and the second in mid-October. Both were hugely successful thanks to the skill of the dedicated teams at the Golden Jubilee National Hospital in Clydebank. There can be no greater gift than to preserve the sense of sight.
All of this was carried out free of charge within our so undervalued National Health Service by highly trained staff. We often don't value what we have.
Dave Biggart,
Southcroft, Knockbuckle Road, Kilmacolm.
DR J D McKelvie’s letter (October 30) appropriately recognises Dr AJ Cronin’s book The Citadel as a possible stimulus for the birth of the NHS. In addition, Cronin drew attention to the non-existent state of postgraduate medical education, with newly qualified doctors going straight from university to unsupervised medical practice, with all its inherent challenges.
What is less well known is that AJ Cronin’s son Professor RF Cronin was an inspirational Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University in Montreal, which has close links with the University of Glasgow. He was also a highly respected cardiologist. He worked very effectively with the Canadian International Development Agency in setting up student and graduate fellowship exchange programmes in developing countries. Thus he was able to take forward the deficiencies in post graduate education identified in his father’s writings to a global level. They were indeed a remarkable family with strong west of Scotland links.
Dr F G Dunn,
14Gadloch Avenue, Lenzie.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here