No Visit From Minister to Psychiatric Ward

IT WAS encouraging that the health secretary met with and listened to the members of the staff invited to meet her during the visit to the Vale of Leven Hospital.

However, it seems that no such invitation was issued to the staff of the Christie Ward – the inpatient psychiatric unit within the hospital. In fact, it appears that the staff had no official notification of the visit. Perhaps this was an oversight – in which case it was an unfortunate one, or perhaps it is indicative of the status with which psychiatry is viewed within the NHS itself. Not for nothing is it called the Cinderella of healthcare.

Jean Johnston, Brincliffe, West Dhuhill Drive, Glasgow.

I HAVE to admire Nicola Sturgeon for visiting the Vale of Leven hospital and doing her best to reassure the local population. However, I and most of my medical colleagues are of the opinion that the Vale of Leven is now unfit to serve the purpose of a district general hospital.

In previous letters to this paper I have outlined how services have become so run down and staff demotivated that the only option now is for major change, including rerouting of admissions elsewhere.

To get the hospital up and running again would be financial suicide and, to be perfectly honest, a lot of staff are now employed elsewhere in the local health service. I doubt if they would take a retrograde step and be enticed back to their former posts.

Sadly, all in all, it is a case of too little, too late.

Dr Robert McGonigle, Dumbarton Health Centre, Station Road, Dumbarton.

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