Money denied to patients but spent on foreign criminals
WRONG PRIORITIES: Re your front page story "Mum needs £16,000 to stay alive" (Boxing Day), it beggars belief that you even have to ask whether the health trust should change its mind.
Shame on all those responsible for not allowing Viv Foster, pictured right, to carry on taking Herceptin on the NHS.
I know The Sentinel has to report on these stories, but sometimes I wish you would not as it makes me so incensed.
Jimmy Greaves once said it's a funny old game, well, it's a funny old world as well.
Funny in the sense that we cannot find enough money to pay for Viv Foster and many more worthwhile causes, but we always seem to find thousands to give away on outrageous handouts.
However, in my top five You Cannot Make It Up series, this has to rank number one. We cannot find money for Viv, but we can find money for foreign killers, rapists and others to return home when they are freed from prison.
The criminals are being paid £5,000 to help them pay for training or start their own business when they return home. Last year, a staggering £3.4 million was given to about 1,350 foreign prisoners. There are about 11,000 foreign criminals in our jails.
Funny old world, don't you think? We do not seem to have trouble finding money for them, do we?
Best of luck, Viv, hope you get the funding.
J M BURKE
Abbey Hulton
2 Comments
by ian, Kidsgrove
Wednesday, January 06 2010, 6:32PM
“i agree with real stokie to be quite honest, even though i smoke (i dont drink or anything else) i dont expect the nhs to look after me if it makes me ill, im completely aware of it being my problem, im not a fan of doctors or hospitals either so even if im that sick i cant move i just ride it out.
also its totally absurd that these criminals should get 5,000, that money would help myself and my disabled son and 2 daughters feed ourselves for months but we have to rely on small amounts just to live when these people get thousands, i spent every penny i had for christmas for my kids and my wife and i are totally exhausted too, i didnt have anything for xmas because the kids are enough for me”
by Real Stokie, Hanley
Wednesday, January 06 2010, 3:18PM
“Forget the money being spent on foreign criminals, this is a drop in the ocean compared with what the NHS wastes on treating smokers, drunks and fatties. Good money after bad because they get repeatedly treated for things they could have avoided if they'd lived better. Don't come the "they pay tax" neither, the amount most of these people pay goes nowhere near the amount their treatment costs. These people are the real burden on British taxpayers.”