I WAS born in 1948, the year our National Health was born.

Around that time it was much needed with ‘free’ medical assistance to all.

Yet now in 2021 it appears that is not always the case – we hear stories today of ambulances not being able to attend for even much longer than an hour and when they do, held in a queue for even more hours because the hospital is full.

Emergency services with fully trained paramedics hanging around in a long queue not being able to go elsewhere to another emergency call. Those finally admitted, waiting even longer on a hallway trolley queue.

The NHS is just a long and growing story of queues.

Some 5.83 million people, more than one in 10, are now waiting for treatment in England – an increase of over 1.5 million in a year. One in ten people are on the waiting list, which is at a new record of 5.8m.

Local GPs are now becoming unavailable and NHS dentists have long gone down below frequent attendance. A&E have picked up the slack with medical problems once seen by GPs and dentists but that could involve up to a ten hour wait.

I don’t for one moment blame our doctors, nurses or even dentists for our NHS now being dead in the water, but the system run by our governments, especially the Conservatives, who claim ‘the NHS is safe in our hands’.

I think it is now time to abandon ship on the NHS run by government and go private.

Germany alone has an excellent medical insurance that even covers dental.

The main one for ordinary workers means they pay in from their wages just like our own National Insurance.

The big difference is that unlike our governments who put all the monies into one big pot that pays for expenses like duck houses – the German insurance companies invest it to make more – even local lotteries pay for medical equipment and not some crazy art project like ours.

The initial great idea of our NHS has now been destroyed and is on a complete downfall.

We need to move to the German idea (not USA), and introduce a national but commercial scheme. In my past experiences I found the German medical programme most exemplary – nurses and doctors are treated much better and patients just the same.

Many people claim that our National Health Service is the best in the world – but they can only claim that when compared to third world countries and USA – in which we will soon be the same.

CHRISTINE PETERS Wellington Road, Bournemouth