Letters: Let's hope hospital telephone costs are separate from TV

My sister was in the ERI for six months from February 2008 until August 2008. She is very diabetic and eventually had an amputation. During that time the family were constantly in touch with her and the hospital as to her welfare. The cost of telephone calls was huge, with five minutes of advertising at the beginning of the call.

I am delighted that the hospital has moved forward regarding the cost of the calls, but anyone who is really ill is not interested in television or e-mail or other pursuits. As my sister was very diabetic she had limited vision and could not see the television. I am not totally convinced that the nursing staff realised how little my sister could see, which is virtually nothing.

I hope that the telephone calls will be separated from the costs of television as not everyone wants the television, particularly the elderly or the very sick. After all, the hospital is for the ill and is not a leisure park.

Diana Mackenzie, Bruntsfield Place, Edinburgh

Why not plough on using bin trucks?

WHY can't Edinburgh City Council use the money it wants to spend on private firms (News, 7 January) to adapt bin lorries by putting blades on the front of them to act as snowploughs as they go on their bin rounds?

That would help keep the housing schemes roads open for the public and make access easier for emergency vehicles. It would be money well spent and could be used year after year.

Rab Brown, Livingston

Don't blame Labour for gritting blunder

IT IS with some disbelief that I read the comments of R Johnston (Letters, 7 January) in regard to the non-gritting of our streets.

I find it astonishing that this author could find the previous Labour administration to be the guilty party in this issue . . . does R Johnston not realise that this administration has been making the choices since May 2007?

The writer then apportions blame on the Labour party for "foisting" the "much-hated" trams on us, when in fact I believe all parties supported the contract award to Bilfinger Berger, it may have been in May 2008 . . . yet another clear choice by all concerned including the administration parties.

Your correspondent then bizarrely manages to apportion blame to the Labour party for the school closures . . . unless I have read it wrong, and as I understand it, the vote to close these schools was won by the casting vote of the Lib Dem Lord Provost and supported only by the administration parties, all the other parties voted against closure!

That looks like another clear choice by the Lib Dem/SNP administration to me.

Perhaps R Johnston would like to give us all an indication of a date as to when the responsibility will then fall on this administration for the decisions they are making?

Kenneth Wright, Drum Brae Drive, Edinburgh

Pouring cold water on sceptics' views

PERHAPS Clark Cross (Letters, 6 January) should restrict his letters to subjects where he at least has a basic understanding of what he is writing about. He obviously thinks the recent cold weather somehow demolishes the very large amount of scientific data demonstrating global warming is indeed taking place.

The recent cold weather here neither proves nor disproves global warming, or the hand that people have in it. Only the seriously misinformed and/or blinkered could possibly say otherwise. The global part should possibly give an indicator that looking out your window in Linlithgow doesn't really give accurate data.

While being no climate-change zealot, the simple fact is the vast majority of scientific research points to there being a case for global warming having been brought on by ourselves. While not infallible, surely peer-reviewed scientific research is to be trusted more than, say, multinational oil companies and their (often paid) apologists? It seems to be the latter that Mr Cross has chosen to believe.

Sad to say, but letters like that from Mr Cross merely demonstrate what a shameful amount of ignorance still exists on the subject.

Mick Geggus, Dundas Street, Edinburgh