Mid Staffordshire Hospital

Why has the Oscar Pistorius case been leading the BBC news for the last several days? He is a foreign athlete who has allegedly shot dead his girl friend. I can understand the initial incident being reported  but to give wall to wall coverage of the bail hearing is quite ridiculous. I am sure that many people will think it is the trial when in fact it is just a bail hearing. How can a bail hearing lead the news for so many days?

The BBC need to get  a proper sense of priorities. At the Mid Staffordshire Hospital up to 1200 patients died due to the neglect of the NHS but nobody has been brought to account and the BBC are not pursuing it at all. There have been repeated calls for Sir David Nicholson, the head of the NHS who presided over the Mid Staffordshire Hospital disaster, to resign, but the BBC do not report that. At the Winterbourne House in Bristol six out of 11 care workers who admitted a total of 38 charges of neglect or abusing patients were rightly jailed. At the Mid Staffs Hospital 1200 actually died ( nobody died from the neglect at Winterbourne) but none of the Mid Staffs Hospital staff have been even been charged, let alone jailed. I can only assume that this is the public sector looking after its own. If Mid Staffs Hospital was a private hospital the BBC would be all over the case demanding prosecutions.

Yours faithfully,

Cllr Brian Silvester BA (Hons)
Willaston and Rope Ward Councillor

Tel/fax 01270 567757