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Human cost of cuts

FURTHER to your article about Cheryl Hughes in the Adver, on Friday, August 12, and the stress caused to a vulnerable cancer patient by Swindon Council’s “threat” to evict her due to rent arrears caused by her inability to work.

I have just heard that the follow up check to her operation was on Thursday, September 1, in the morning.

She was notified by second class post which she received on Thursday, September 1, in the early afternoon.

When she phoned up the hospital to explain why she missed the appointment, the nurse was very apologetic about using second class post but this was due to cutting costs.

Efficiency, eh? I suggest that people who require communication from hospitals should use an e-mail address or text message to prevent future delays.

This is further evidence of the shambles caused by the Tory dogma of NHS privatisation being caused by deliberate underfunding to make people lose faith in a superb service so that a “few” people can cash in on our health problems by total privatisation.

I hope that people are beginning to realise what it will cost them financially if the NHS becomes totally private where profits come before people.

MIKE BOON

Lansdown Road, Swindon

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Thanks to A&E ‘angels’

I HAVE recently come home from GWH, having been quite seriously ill.

The ambulance staff were brilliant, especially as I had to be moved down a very awkward flight of stairs.

You could not have bettered any of the staff, doctors, nurses and others all doing what had to be done in a calm and efficient way so as to make one feel relaxed and confident.

I was eventually moved from A&E to an acute ward where the staff were amazing at all times, day or night, especially considering all the different things pleasant and unpleasant that they had to deal with.

They are not just ordinary workers they are what I would call “angels” always going about their tasks with a smile and a dedication that should not be criticised.

One should appreciate the amount of work that is required by them day in day out.

Finally, to all you dedicated staff my sincere thanks for all the care you gave me as a patient.

PAUL HAYES

Shrivenham Road, South Marston

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Apple have to pay up

STEVE Halden doesn’t seem to have a complete grasp of the row between the EU and Ireland over tax paid by Apple. (A big bite out of Apple, SA September 2).

The EU has not demanded any tax from Apple, neither has it said that Ireland’s corporation tax rate is illegal.

What it has done is instruct the Irish government to collect tax on £88bn that Apple claim were earned by parts of the company that have no buildings, plant, equipment or employees and are not located in any country.

By appealing this ruling the Irish government appears to agree that Apple can somehow earn profits in outer space.

Sales taxes levied in each country of operation would be a far more robust way to nail these international companies to the wall.

DON REEVE

Horder Mews, Old Town, Swindon

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Interest rates too low

THE biggest mistake that Gordon Brown ever made was to allow the Bank Of England to set the interest rates in Britain.

It was interest rates being set too low for too long that created the house price bubble that crashed the banks.

To help us recover from that crash Britain has now had to put up with low interest rates for eight years.

There is no sign these very low interest rates have helped British industry to prosper.

Mike Carney foolishly reduced interest rates yet again just a few weeks ago.

My tax free cash ISA now pays one 20th of a per cent interest. To all intents and purposes this is absolutely zero.

Company pension funds rely on the interest from their investments to make weekly payments to their pensioners but there is nowhere to put money these days where it will earn a decent rate of interest.

The Bank of England was created in 1694, that is 322 years ago and never in all that time have interest rates been as low as they are today.

If we want to build a sustainable economy in Britain then these current interest rates are far too low.

STEVE HALDEN

Beaufort Green, Swindon

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Tragedy of Dial-a-Ride

SO VERY sorry to hear the Dial-a-Ride service is to be drastically cut and by 2020 to finish completely.

Why cut this service which helps the elderly and infirm?

Taxi drivers will not take them if they have wheelchairs, that is definitely discrimination.

Swindon Council please don’t take this service away, this bus is the only means of transport for vulnerable people.

SHIRLEY PICKETT

Ermin Street, Stratton, Swindon

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BBC drop ball on issue

I SEE the fully paid up member of the Workers’ Revolutionary Party, Vanessa Redgrave, who a few years ago gave the most grovelling courtesy to royalty I have ever witnessed, is now campaigning to have the “lost” children of Calais, some 800 in all, brought here (What was Brexit all about?).

Whatever one’s views on the subject, last year a BBC interviewer asked a well-heeled member of the Save The Children charity at the Calais camp: was there not a danger that many more would replace them ad infinitum?

This would of course also guarantee future employment for the charity’s innumerable spokespeople!

The spokeswoman displayed superb political skill: She went off on a tangent lecturing about this and that, in short evading the question.

And the dopey female BBC interviewer never even picked her up on this! What a waste of licence money.

JEFF ADAMS

Bloomsbury, Swindon