RECENT reports regarding the care of vulnerable people in care homes, hospitals and in their own homes make disturbing reading, especially for those who have a friend or relative in need of such support.
The people to whom we entrust those we care about deserve everything coming to them if they abuse their positions. Fortunately, there are many in the caring professions who go beyond their duty to ensure those in their care get the treatment that they deserve.
In the recent spell of bad weather the services on which we are so reliant have been excellent, namely the Newsome District Nurse Team, the staff at Lockwood Pharmacy, the GPs and staff at Lockwood Surgery and, in particular, the carers from Advanced Community Health Care in Holmfirth.
Although it was difficult to get to us, many of them set out early in order to reach us to give the care that was necessary.
In some cases cars were abandoned to trudge through the snow to ensure our needs were met.
Their professionalism continues to make a stressful situation easier to cope with and we have come to regard these dedicated people as our friends who always have a cheerful word to brighten up what can be an isolating situation.
Many thanks for your care. We are fortunate we are lucky enough to have the services of those who see their work as a vocation and not just a job.
Val Durham and Alison Howlett
Crosland Moor
Broken gritter
I’M writing in response to a letter from a Concerned Traveller, Denby Dale about a gritter not using its snow plough near Denby Dale when snow was blowing onto the road.
The gritting wagon mentioned in the letter was a contractor from Emley, travelling to the Pinfold Depot, Lower Denby to be loaded for salt.
The hydraulic ram on his gritter had smashed and could not be used. Once his gritter was loaded with salt, the ram was replaced within minutes at my yard, adjacent to the Pinfold depot.
It’s inevitable that during such treacherous weather conditions equipment can get damaged.
Following the repair we continued to work as a team, snowploughing through the night, dealing with one of the worst snowfalls since the 1970s.
Steven Slater
Winter Maintenance Contractor, Denby Lane
Privatising the NHS
THE real reason why the Tories are privatising our NHS is the ‘US/EU Free Trade Agreement’ – the annual general meeting of the G8 members is in Northern Ireland in June of this year and David Cameron will not only be chairing it, he’s all for it
If this agreement goes through it will allow US multinationals to be like vultures and reap enormous profits from our NHS system.
We must urgently alert everyone in the country to campaign and stop this scandalous act from being passed, otherwise the privatisation of our NHS is irreversible.
Please visit the website http://opendemocracy.net/ournhs/
linda-kaucher/real-force-behind-nhs-
act-euus-trade-agreement
Dave Coates
Flockton
Austerity is failing
THIS Government is intent on restoring profitability to the capitalist system by attacking us on every front.
It uses austerity as a cover – even though it is clear to all that austerity is not working!
Instead of a programme of job creation, building affordable homes and spending money on infrastructure projects, it embarks on some of the most vicious attacks we have seen in decades on our public services and welfare benefits.
The Government hopes to get away with this by setting us against each other – the better off against the poor, the poor against the poor, scapegoating immigrants, the public sector against the private sector ad nauseam!
The only way forward is resistance on a massive scale with or without the help of New Labour or the Trade Union leaders.
The Bedroom Tax which started on April 1 is causing widespread concern and anger and it is up to all of us – directly affected or not – to get stuck into stop the threatened evictions.
To join the campaign and for more information about the ‘Kirklees Campaign to Axe the Tax’ check out
https://www.facebook.com/groups/
150879225078790/ and Twitter account: https://twitter.com/KirkleesAxeTax
The Kirklees Campaign to Axe the Tax are organising a demonstration against the Bedroom Tax on April 6 at 12.30pm Market Cross in Huddersfield town centre.
June Jones
Kirklees Axe the Tax Campaign
Quiet day in Meltham
EASTER Sunday and everything was strangely quiet in the village of Meltham.
Was it the snow? No the roads were clear and passable.
Why then the almost ethereal quiet? The answer to the conundrum lies in the next village, namely Holmfirth and the fact that Morrisons supermarket in Meltham was closed.
The endless procession of vehicles from Holmfirth, polluting and causing chaos on Meltham’s roads, merrily speeding their way to Morrisons to do their supermarket shopping was thwarted!
Please get your own supermarket. Holmfirth is no more special than any of the other surrounding villages – much of Summer Wine was filmed in Meltham and Marsden anyway.
We don’t appreciate your selfish Nimbyism.
Tess North
Meltham
Getting away with it?
I WRITE this letter baffled that Sir Norman Bettison cannot face a hearing or trial for misconduct.
I realise he is now retired which a lot of serving officers seem to opt for when they might find themselves in trouble one way or another.
I know that any serving soldier when he finishes his career and it then comes to light that he committed an offence can still be hauled up and face disciplinary procedures. I’m not talking about failing to get a haircut, nothing that trivial.
It’s time these people who become figures of authority and are suppose to set an example start to reap the social aspects of the real world.
It seems to me and I believe many other ordinary people of this once great nation, that people who attain and hold authority seem to get away with everything because of their status.
It’s time these people started to get their comeuppance, starting with Sir Norman Bettison.
I would like to see him lose his second pension, and his stripped of his knighthood.
That is even before we get to the travesty of Hillsborough.
Mr Keith Bagot
Honley
