SCOTLAND’S NHS is under pressure, with staff clearly doing their utmost for us all, going beyond the call of duty and going the extra mile. My own family can vouch for that recently, with the best of attention and care. So it was rather disappointing and distasteful to hear Scottish Conservative health spokesman Dr Sandesh Gulhane suggest that Scotland’s Health Secretary Humza Yousaf is “more interested in photo ops than urgently out-lining how he will maximise the support of the army to support overwhelmed staff”.

Our politicians are human and I know it may come as a surprise to many, but they can’t fix everything all the time. Sometimes circumstances are outwith their control, circumstances like a global pandemic. Then there are the day-to-day issues faced by our NHS.

READ MORE: Police do security checks at Humza Yousaf's house due to threats

The roll-out of the Covid vaccine has been an immense undertaking, with boosters now available and the annual flu jag. Our NHS has been at the forefront of it all and its staff are not immune from catching Covid, resulting in many days off work. Shortages occur and the front line gets stretched – this is not the Health Secretary’s fault, it is as a result of the pandemic we are all living through. But everything is under consideration, mountains are being moved in an effort to assist the sick and needy, in spite of the allegation by Dr Gulhane.

Perhaps Dr Gulhane, instead of making such derogatory remarks, could offer some concrete proposals, proposals that could lift morale of our hardworking NHS staff.

Catriona C Clark
Falkirk

TASMINA Ahmed –Sheikh’s recent article (Accepting loss of life and high Covid case numbers is not what ‘new normal’ should be, Oct 19) should serve as a wake-up call. Today around 20 to 30 residents of Scotland will probably die of Covid. They were real people. They leave behind family and friends, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, aunties and uncles, workmates and neighbours. Tomorrow another 20 to 30 will be added to the total – and so on and so on. The grim death toll in Scotland is now around the 9000 mark. At the current rate we will reach 10,000 deaths by December.

News of their deaths will no longer make the front pages of any newspaper. It will not be the first item on any TV or radio news broadcast. The media, and sadly much the general public, have become bored with the subject of Covid. It has become a blur on the distant news horizon. Face masks have become optional accessories in shops. The First Minister no longer updates us on a daily basis.

READ MORE: No plans for further Covid-19 restrictions in Scotland, Health Secretary says

The UK Government have lifted more travel restrictions, the Scottish Government have followed them. The travel industry cannot contain its joy. COP26 will bring thousands of potential Covid carriers to one of our biggest cities while our NHS is struggling to cope, with around 1000 of its beds taken up by Covid cases.

If a maniac toured Scotland and randomly killed 20 to 30 people every day that would presumably be front-page news, but the fact they die at the hands of a virus seems to matter so much less these days.

Call me a cynic, but could the lifting of more restrictions be in some way related to the ending of the furlough scheme? Have governments just given up on us all? Have they decided that the daily death of around 20 to 30 people in Scotland, and an even greater number in the rest of the UK, is worth it to get us back to work and paying our taxes, our gas bills and our soon-to-be-increased National Insurance?

Brian Lawson
Paisley

WE have entered new territory as part of the United Kingdom.

While deaths and Covid hospitalisations mount, the UK refuses to implement basic safety precautions that they know work. Instead, they want people to go to the office, get into crowded places, and spend, so sustaining the illusion that things are “back to normal”. The government is encouraging life-threatening behaviour.

If an employer behaved that way, they would be subject to criminal prosecution for wilful negligence.

We are in uncharted territory, ruled on a UK level by politicians who are gambling with our lives. Yet this is justified with a series of improvised and ever-changing arguments as to why their conduct at any point it is for the best – their best. People know better but are treated with disdain. The rule of law, our last defence, is being steadily undermined.

READ MORE: Devi Sridhar: COP26 will make Covid worse and lead to new restrictions

Trust, that most precious commodity between government and citizens, has been squandered. We cannot trust the UK Government to protect our lives, or to tell the truth. Do we trust Johnson and his affluent cronies to save our planet, to give our children a future?

This situation has gone beyond party politics, or the reduced democracy that remains to us. This is government not for but against the people. If we do not reassert the rule of common sense, fairness and compassion, then we are heading for serfdom not citizenship.

Never was Scottish democracy more urgently needed, for the good of everyone in these islands.

Donald Smith
Edinburgh

A GOVERNMENT in disarray – the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing:

Wednesday October 20: Boris Johnson at PMQs states that the Online Harms Bill will come before parliament before Christmas.

Thursday October 21: Rees-Mogg at Business Questions states it will not come before Christmas.

Wednesday October 20: Sajid Javid at the Covid press conference states you should wear masks in crowded places.

Thursday October 21: Newspapers and TV filled with pictures of MPs in crowded parliament not wearing masks – only opposition MPs wearing masks.

Thursday October 21: UK Trade Minister, when questioned by Drew Hendry, does not know that international trade is a reserved matter.

And finally, Westminster Tories break promise of triple lock on pensions and as a result pensioners will lose out on more than £400 per year – this in the country that has the lowest pensions in Europe.

Winifred McCartney
Paisley