Why actors are often used to train medical students - Yorkshire Post Letters

MAY I be the first of your readers to congratulate Hilary Andrews on having a medical student for a grandson (The Yorkshire Post, May 11). She is however wrong to worry about him using actors to practice on during his extensive training.

In my long nursing career (1978 to the present), it has been normal practice for medical and nursing students to make use of actors during pre- and post-graduate education. She can be assured that the real patients will come thick and fast once he has passed his exams and is working in the clinical areas.

She is correct, though, to be concerned about 10-minute GP appointments. I can find no accredited study which justifies this widely accepted timeframe which owes more to habit than research.

From: Miss J Ella, Thorndale Croft, Wetwang, Driffield.

WE are extremely fortunate in our practice to have good access regarding appointments, as I know only too well recently (The Yorkshire Post, May 11).

It is interesting though that one of the major problems in getting an appointment is often due to ones where people fail to cancel. Putting together an example in our practice’s newsletter, a total of 178 appointments were missed between last November and February this year. This equates to 46 hours of wasted clinical time.

The practice provides ample means of cancelling. It is a pity that – because the NHS is a free service – patients who fail to cancel cannot be fined.

Workforces deserve better

From: James Brown, Holbeck Avenue, Scarborough

IT seems that too many of the new internet companies are relying on what can only be termed slave labour (David Behrens, The Yorkshire Post, May 11).

To say that we all benefit from the low prices is a falsehood. We may save individually but, as a society, we are all paying in a number of ways, not least of all from the extra stress places on our overworked and underfunded ambulance service. Which is paid for from taxes.

I have served in the forces, been employed in retail and industry and also been a teacher. In all of these occupations there has always been some form of medical assistance available, even if it was only a first aid kit and a trained first aider.

When I worked at a large factory in Leicester there was not only a subsidised canteen, but also a dedicated medical room with a nurse always available. It would seem that these facilities are no longer deemed necessary as they are a drain on profits.

Surely it is about time that these employers, many of whom pay minimal taxes, were forced to take care of the workforce they employ and not rely on society in general to sort out their problems?

Money in too few hands

From: Gordon Sanderson, Roughbirchworth Lane, Oxspring, Barnsley.

WE are told that a few dozen people now own more wealth put together than three-and-a-half billion of the poorest people, which is half the world population. If that is not extremism, then there is no such thing as extremism.

Search online the graph of world debt to GDP, or just debt, and see it rise like Mount Everest from the 80s to the present, where it is now above the peak of the 1929 debt bubble which led to the Wall Street crash and the Great Depression. And ask the politicians who they expect to pay for all this debt creation which masquerades as wealth creation.

A few years ago, I watched a televised Parliamentary debate on money creation, but only seven or eight politicians turned up for it and they didn’t throw any light on the subject. No politicians have any understanding of the monetary system, but that doesn’t stop their economic claims and promises.

Isn’t it time the natives stopped believing the economic witch doctors and political tribal chiefs and demanded clear information?

A vote of cynicism

From: Brian H Sheridan, Lodge Moor, Sheffield.

HOW depressing that members of North Yorkshire Council applauded enthusiastically after voting councillor Robert Heseltine in as the authority’s vice-chairman, ahead of automatically becoming the council’s chairman next year (The Yorkshire Post, May 16).

Thoughts such as “there but for the grace of God...” and “doesn’t everyone?” immediately spring to mind. The whole affair smacks of endemic cynicism which, sadly, is all too prevalent in all walks of life. Yes, “we are human and we have frailties”, as Coun Heseltine claims, but I, for one, would not expect to be elected to a senior position if I had “form” in money-matters. If, as it appears, Coun Heseltine has been a good servant to the community he should renounce his ambition and continue to serve as a humble councillor.

HS2 likely to be scrapped

From: Eddie Peart, Broom Crescent, Rotherham.

THE House of Lords is suggesting the speed of the HS2 train should be reduced to save costs. It would then be quicker to get to London on the existing track. Surely another excuse to cancel the project altogether?

I still say the HS2 train will never happen, and the money saved will be redirected and spent on transport problems in London. At present money spent on transport in London is six times per person higher than the rest of the country. This will widen as time goes by.