ARTHUR DAY, of Ferndale Road, Teignmouth, writes:

I have noticed your invitation to let you know my opinions. Will you think me rude if I say it might help to fill your print run, but otherwise I don’t believe anyone takes the slightest notice of any ordinary person’s opinion – unless, of course, there is an election in the offing.

For example, many of your subscribers have written criticising the NHS proposal to close Teignmouth Hospital, but rather than take notice, the NHS administrators, who tell the nurses and doctors ‘what to do’, apply this policy all over the country.

Using my definition of a ‘politician’ as ‘anyone who spends other people’s money’, the NHS now proposes to close all the local services and spend the NHS surplus money on a new computerised centre on some ‘unknown’ site, which will benefit me and all the citizens of Teignmouth, Dawlish, Bishopsteignton, etc, in respect of our travelling, parking, waiting time, with a selection of doctors using computers instead of personal experience.

Coming from a ‘common sense’ generation, my cynicism about today’s technological age can be explained but my experience is that ‘power’ is the target and ‘printed money’ the weapon!

Of course, the NHS is short of money, it’s a ‘politicial football’ with every party claiming that just spending money on it guarantees efficiency. Nothing is further from the truth. They say there’s government money, European money, Lottery money but if you believe that, you’re stupid. It’s all our money which we have spent our lives earning!

The NHS administrators who propose to shut our Teignmouth Hospital and all the others are really the problem. Their skill is to spend money, not to save it. Instead of scrapping local hospitals, which local people have supported financially, these ‘office boys’ who seem to have the power and authority to pay themselves these ‘vast’ industrial size salaries, should have their, at present unfettered, powers broken up into local responsibilities, conscious of local needs and wishes.

As a founder member, I think I am entitled to say, in my opinion, this is not the NHS which Aneuran Bevan (and I) envisaged.

I remember when ‘debt’ was considered a problem. Today’s ‘educated experts’ let the future worry about it!