Strike highlights important issues

I guess what Dr. Spraggett actually means (Courier last week) is that a doctor will not refuse to see someone with an obviously urgent problem or who clearly needs emergency intervention. The danger is how many patients are actually aware that they have an urgent problem or require emergency intervention until they have seen their doctor? I imagine out of all the people who set off to see their doctors quite a number do so without realising they have a serious problem. Given that there will be a backlog after the doctor’s strike some people will surely be at greater risk from having their diagnosis of a critical condition being delayed?

Even so, I still don’t know what can be done to put a dampener on the strife being caused by all the current rhetoric about pensions, be they in the public sector or the private sector. It all seems pretty desperate and shallow stuff to me with politicians, often aided and abetted by the media, constantly banging on about what the country can and cannot afford.

In reality the economic debate is about priorities in all their diversity and while things are undoubtedly in a mess, long term thinking seems conspicuous by its absence as has always been the case. I bet everyone has their own ranking list of what the country can and cannot afford at the moment. However, is anyone clear about the impact today’s decisions will have on the future? The awkwardness and fall out of trying to renegotiate pension deals made before the balloon went up is just one example.

Things have certainly changed and while we all have our own thoughts about why, it is indeed a bold and wise man who knows how to put things right.

Returning to the doctors, if they do eventually lose out is anyone even remotely convinced that any of the money saved will be used for the greater good? - David Taylor, address supplied.