Speak out

Think of all the various scandals over the past 20 years: paedophile priests within the Roman Catholic Church; abuse and neglect within NHS hospitals and nursing homes; MPs’ abuse of expenses and the Jimmy Savile paedophile abuse on BBC and NHS premises.

In all of these cases people have been aware of the abuse and chosen to say nothing out of misplaced loyalty or fear of retribution.

In all of these cases incidents of abuse could have been prevented if only staff had blown the whistle earlier on the abusers.

I was a nurse. If I saw a fellow nurse abuse a patient do you think that I should whistleblow on the abuser? Would your answer be different if the patient being abused was your own mum or dad?

Far from being the “enemy within” (Letters, 13 November), whistleblowers should be seen as true heroes.

Roman Catholic priests who threatened to expose incidents of paedophile abuse were originally threatened with excommunication.

Neil Sinclair

Clarence Street

Edinburgh