Why I’ll be in my car even if the M4 is hell
3:45pm Thursday 19th January 2012 in Your Say
Why I’ll be in my car even if the M4 is hell
Swindon to Reading cost of diesel in car doing 45mpg: £12:50 return.
Swindon to Reading cost of fare at peak time (when I usually need to go to work – first off peak train is the 9.35am): £64 return. That’s about £1 per minute: as much as one of those premium rate phone lines.
Oh I know we’re supposed to add all those other car costs, but I would have to pay them regardless of whether I use the car for work (I still paid them when the car was sat at home all week whilst I used the season ticket), and my car is so old there’s no depreciation left.
And there is no recognition that, like me, many people work from home one or two days a week, but you have still already paid for your season ticket. If you don’t have a season ticket and don’t drive in, however, that’s a zero cost day.
Why not sell batches of journeys? For example, 100 journeys for a discount rather than for a fixed period? Not too hard to come up with an answer when you consider that the train companies are in it to make money, not to provide a public service.
The occasional train trots up the hugely expensively maintained rail line whilst the M4 is nose to tail, three lanes abreast, from the early hours. I often can’t get above 60mph even at 7am owing to the sheer weight of traffic. And it’s not going to change whilst First Great Western’s first priority is to make a profit and the politicians are some of the few who can still afford to use it. Unless anybody’s got any bright ideas.
Duncan Willby (Ex train commuter) Walcot Road Swindon
Not playing God
I read with great concern Tony McLellan’s alarmist letter headed Sneaky Euthanasia (Adver, January 3). I have witnessed the Liverpool Care Pathway, as it was implemented for my mother, aged 97, before she died a year ago.
Mr McLellan’s sarcastic comment that it is “simply the doctors playing God” is far removed from my experience of what occurred in my mother’s case. As her condition deteriorated, she was treated with great respect by doctors and nurses alike. Exhausted by the struggle to stay alive, she expressed the wish to be allowed to give up. At one point, she said sadly: “They won’t let me die.” Hardly what one might expect where the doctors want to “expedite the process” of dying, as Mr McLellan describes it.
Hearing her wish, the question of using the Liverpool Care Pathway was discussed with me and, with my agreement, was implemented. Soon after she rallied a little, and was immediately taken off the Pathway and offered food. In the event her improvement was short lived and she quickly relapsed into her former state.
The LCP was reintroduced, she was kept pain-free and comfortable, and died peacefully in her sleep soon afterwards. I was kept informed at all times, and shown that all the considerable documentation had been kept up to date.
I would ask Mr McLellan: Wouldn’t the doctors be playing God if they had refused to let her go? Have they the right to decide to disregard her plea to be allowed to die? Should they impose their will over hers, and demand that she should prolong her suffering until, at last, she found a way to defeat modern medical science?
The arrogant, self-assured tone of his letter was, so far as I could tell, totally devoid of even the slightest trace of compassion. But then, how would I know? I may be biased because I am a staff nurse at GWH!
Judy Jones RGN Grosvenor Road Swindon
Angels superb
Ms T Simpson (tragic truth, Adver, January 7) criticises the care her mother received on Orchard Ward in the Swindon Intermediate Care Centre.
My experience with my own mother, who was discharged just before Christmas after spending nine weeks on Orchard Ward, is entirely different.
All the staff on the ward were superb, providing a standard of care and attention one would expect in a private hospital.
Admittedly they were hard pressed, particularly when they had to provide one-to-one care for a seriously ill patient. However, at meal times they even managed to find time to help those who found difficulty feeding themselves.
Among some of the proposals recently unveiled by David Cameron was that nurses will perform hourly rounds. This is already standard practice on the two wards at SWICC; surely a good indication of the care patients can expect to receive on both Orchard and Forest wards.
M Beale Swindon
Pippa fever
Enough is enough regarding Pippa’s rear! Good job she is not the next Queen or the public, especially men, would be more interested in her departure than her arrival!
Babette Hunt Hill View Road Swindon
