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Readers’ letters: The morality behind NHS strikes, Scottish Labour and SNP

NHS workers marched on Trafalgar Square, London, in 2020, threatening strike action and calling for better pay.

Sir, – It appears that doctors in Scotland have voted overwhelmingly to take strike action due to the pressures that they have been suffering since the start of the pandemic.

Surely this goes against the Hippocratic oath, which is an oath of ethics historically taken by physicians that requires every new physician to swear that they will uphold a number of professional ethical standards.

As Hippocrates himself stated: “It’s more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of disease a person has.”

Wise words indeed, but how is this even possible when patients have about as much chance of getting an appointment at health centres and clinics as there is of them gaining access to Fort Knox?

I am sure our beleaguered GPs are carrying out sterling duties cloistered away in their barely accessible consulting rooms.

However, it has become blatantly obvious that the relationship between GPs and their patients has reached a stage which looks like a scenario of disrespect and mistrust from the patients’ aspect, that will take some considerable time to repair.

With just about every organisation in the UK threatening strike action, do the instigators not consider where the finances are coming from?

To use the cliche, Sunak or Truss do not have access to a magic money tree.

I am sure the “underpaid” GPs in Scotland have other options for supplementing their incomes with certain duties carried out for private businesses all of which are entirely above board.

For doctors in Scotland to even threaten strike action is reprehensible.

It puts them on a par with certain leftist trade unions and is an absolute disgrace.

John Reid, Regent Court, Keith.

Put a halt to spending taxpayers’ money on vanity projects

Sir, – The Scottish Government never tires of telling us how its budget from the UK Government has been cut and how it wishes it could do more to support the people of Scotland.

If that was the case then why is Nicola Sturgeon heading out to Denmark this week to open an international office at the cost of £600,000 per year to Scottish taxpayers?

Added to this, the other international offices cost around £6m per year.

Given that foreign affairs is a reserved matter for the UK Government there is no need for the Scottish Government to be wasting taxpayers’ money on something that can only be described as their latest vanity project.

Added to this we have also found out that 22 taxpayer-funded Scottish civil servants are working on preparing for an independence referendum at a cost of around £1m per year.

Scottish civil servants are there to support the Scottish Government but only on matters that lie within the Scottish Parliament’s remit.

Wouldn’t it be so much better to have these civil servants working to improve standards in areas such as health and education?

When the new prime minister is in place it’s time they made the responsibilities of a devolved government and areas where money can be spent very clear.

That would avoid the first minister and Scottish Government continually wasting taxpayers’ money on endless SNP vanity projects.

Mhairi E Rennie, Finlayson Street, Fraserburgh.

Sarwar overlooks Labour successes

Sir, –It was good to see Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar visit the site of the proposed new school at Tillydrone in Aberdeen, which the SNP/Lib Dem administration now wants to delay building.

Mr Sarwar accused the new administration of “hacking away the legs” of Aberdeen communities.

And while he is correct to question the motives of the administration for the delay to the project, many will ask where Mr Sarwar was when the school was first proposed by the previous Aberdeen Labour administration.

Mr Sarwar and his Scottish Labour colleagues in Glasgow were absent from our city when Aberdeen Labour were in administration for 10 years, building new schools.

In that time they also built new social homes, while other community projects included TECA, Provost Skene House and Aberdeen Art Gallery.

It will be a worry to many that Mr Sarwar and Scottish Labour now find contentment in calling out the opposition rather than praising their own councillors who invested in Aberdeen.

It appears that he and Scottish Labour have been in opposition for so long now, that they find comfort in telling the public where the SNP/Lib Dems are going wrong rather than reminding the public where Aberdeen Labour got it right.

Surely a change of tack from Anas Sarwar is essential if Labour is to be treated seriously by the electorate in the future.

Willie Young, Prospect Terrace, Aberdeen.

GERS statistics are propaganda

Sir, – I am saddened by your paper’s lack of judgment or balance on the issue of GERS figures for Scotland.

The article by John Ferry (August 19) does not even allude to the seriously flawed methodology and lack of actual figures specific to Scotland which claim to indicate a huge budget deficit for our country.

The smoke and mirrors employed in this propaganda exercise of course allow the mainstream media to spout forth the same nonsense year on year to support their unionist agenda.

To quote from an article by Richard Murphy, professor of accounting at Sheffield University Management School: “There is no probative audit trail for over 90% of all the numbers in GERS, no auditor worth his/her salt could ever give GERS a clean audit certificate.

“The Scottish Government will be held accountable for the GERS results even though GERS contains huge values relating to matters reserved to Westminster, and GERS results will be used to embarrass the Scottish Government regardless of which party is in power.”

As yet we don’t know what percentage of the UK debt GERS will allocate to Scotland, but in 2019 it was a ludicrous 60%.

How can a country with 8% of the UK population possibly accrue 60% of the UK fiscal debt?

Scotland is not allowed to borrow and cannot run a deficit. Time to come clean I’d say.

Graham Bell, Allarburn Park, Kiltarlity.

Tories AWOL as crisis bites

Sir, – The Tory Government made the decision to get rid of their prime minister and elect another one who would lead the country better.

But the time they are taking to do this shows they have no concern about the public.

They should have shortened the time of the appointment to office to ensure they were in control at this time of crisis.

September 5 is going to be too little too late, as the saying goes, as by that time the whole country will be in disarray with a national strike looking likely.

Don McKay, Provost Hogg Court, Torry.

Top-heavy NHS needs surgery

Sir, – David Bashforth (EE, August 23) makes the point that lack of bureaucracy and administration will lead to NHS information flow issues but that was not the point of my earlier response.

My view is that the NHS is top-heavy with administration and this has created too many tentacles of information flow.

It needs to be streamlined. My appeal for a grown-up conversation on NHS reform was to properly look at it, warts and all, and be prepared for radical changes in the delivery of care if that was considered the best option.

The service is a perfect theory flawed by how it is being operated and it lets down those in direct patient contact. Other countries have processes that cut through red tape to treat urgent cases but still manage to deliver minimal delays for routine need.

Why is this so and how can we take the best of elsewhere and incorporate it to our NHS? It’s broken and will get worse.

We need to take a cross-party look at how we can give us what we need.

Walter Service, Fairview Manor, Danestone, Aberdeen.

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