If you're old in England today and haven't children to look after you then you face a grim future in the nursing homes. (Personally, I'd rather be shot than ever enter one.)
If you're ill in England, then you'll have to wait an awful long time for hospital treatment. (11 months in my case.) If you're Welsh (that dark-haired Celtic tribe attached to the west of us but which shares our public services) then that's pretty bad luck from almost any point of view. If you're old, Welsh and ill, then you're in deep deep trouble. On BBC Radio today, one old Welshman with one poor eye and the other with a cataract was talking of the letter he wrote to the Secretary of Health recently asking if he could have a cataract operation before June, the soonest date he'd been promised by his hospital. He was turned down. Another old lady in tears was wondering how long she could potter about her house (in deep pain) and look after her bed-ridden husband because she has been told by her hospital that she'll have to wait six years for a hip-replacement operation. Our National Health Service was started in 1947. Keith Hudson __________________________________________________________ �Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in order to discover if they have something to say.� John D. Barrow _________________________________________________ Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________
