AS a 63-year-old Scottish male, on a personal basis a news item tucked away at the bottom of page 11 of The National on Friday, headed “Drop in the number of years Scots can expect to live in good health”, was probably of more immediate interest than both the front-page headlines and many of the other articles inside.
The political views of Hollywood actor James McAvoy, news of the latest Boris staffers to leave the sinking ship, and attempts to defend the recent sale of wind farm leases seemed to fade into almost insignificance when compared with the figures published by National Records of Scotland which show the number of years people in Scotland can expect to live in good health has fallen yet again.
Between 2018 and 2020 the average male healthy life expectancy was 60.9 years, while it was 61.8 years for females. This is a decrease from an expectation of males to live 61.7 years in good health and females 61.9 years in good health, from 2017-2019.
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Those living in the most deprived communities spend on average 24 years – yes, 24 years – fewer in good health than those living in the least deprived areas and they spend more than one-third of their lives in poor health.
Orkney was the area with the highest healthy life expectancy for both males and females (71.2 years and 77.5 years). The areas with the lowest number of years spent in good health were Inverclyde for males (54.4 years) and North Ayrshire for females (54.0 years).
It would seem that after in 300 years of the Union and more than 20 years of devolution we have, in heath improvement terms, run out of steam. No doubt the recent cost-of-living increases and the massive rises in fuel bills will make the eventual figures for the next few years even worse.
It appears that many of us are condemned to die younger, sicker and poorer. The nation’s health, even without the introduction of Covid, is stuck in reverse and is now in danger of staying that way for the foreseeable future.
Brian Lawson
Paisley
FROM a very early age, as a wee laddie born in Linlithgow, I was always fascinated by foreign countries and foreign affairs.
This led me to take a degree in geography, and in my adult life I have travelled in well over 100 countries. But if was to participate actively in foreign affairs I would have had to travel to and work in London, of which I had no knowledge and where I had no contacts. Edinburgh, although a cosmopolitan city, was not the place for someone interested in international affairs. That was London.
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However, chance brought me to live and work in Oslo in Norway, where I have been for many years. Oslo and Edinburgh are more or less the same size as are Norway and Scotland. But when it comes to international affairs, the contrast between Oslo and Edinburgh could not be greater. While Edinburgh has 30 or 40 consulates and honorary consulates, Oslo has 73 full embassies and a great many consulates. And overseas, Norway has well over 80 full embassies. This gives Oslo and Norway an unparalleled international exposure which Edinburgh and Scotland can only dream of.
But this exposure does not stop only at diplomatic relations. Norway´s National Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) has full-time correspondents in Beijing, Beirut, Berlin, Istanbul, London Moscow, Nairobi, New York, Rio de Janeiro and Washington DC. The main newspaper Aftenposten has full-time correspondents in Brussels, Istanbul, London, Moscow and New York. All of these keep Norwegians fully briefed on the matters which matter to Norway, around the world.
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It has always been my contention that exposure to the world brings enormous advantages to a country. One can argue that the Edinburgh International Festival and Scotland’s whisky exports bring an international dimension to the country. But while Scotland’s path to the world is through London, the country will never count for a lot.
It is about time Scotland woke up to the fact that one of the main advantages of independence is the worldwide recognition it brings with it, and the huge advantages in terms of trade, investment, business, diplomacy and culture. Norway understood this more than 100 years ago and has never looked back.
Mike Fergus
Oslo, Norway
IN a BBC TV interview on January 23, the First Minister said that her government would decide “in the coming weeks” the date on which they would seek to introduce the referendum bill to Holyrood.
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That was over two weeks ago, and we should be able to take it that we will be told the date by the 23rd of this month. If the FM spoke the truth, within the next fortnight or so we should get the announcement that primes the starting gun.
For the cause of independence, that will be the most important real step since the last referendum.
Alan Crocket
Motherwell
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