THE HEALTH AND SAFETY OF WHOM?

In the week when a curling bonspiel on the Lake of Menteith fell foul of health and safety legislation, and it is becoming even more evident that the spirit of this country is gradually dying of over-regulation and insurance, my mother has become the latest victim of the Westminster bureaucrats.

The latest "friendly-fire" casualty is 93 years old, severely disabled, and cannot leave her home except in a wheelchair. She is supported by an excellent team of home-helps, who help her to get up in the morning and go to bed at night. She, and other similarly-disabled patients in the same district, receive their repeat prescriptions through an effective system whereby it is ordered, by the patient, over the phone, from a pharmacy attached to the doctor's practice at Scalloway, a few miles away. They, in turn, deliver the medication to the local shop, where the patients' helpers, be they home-helps or family members, can easily pick it up, and this system has worked well. That is, until now.

Now it appears that the officials in Her Majesty's Department of Paranoia have got their legislative teeth into this and, from 1st February, this facility will no longer be available to my mother and the other patients in the neighbourhood. Someone will have to make the journey to the pharmacy to collect the prescribed medication, this involving a round trip of up to ten miles or more. I don't drive, so this is not possible for me.

I can only assume that the notion behind this ridiculous piece of legislative tosh is to guard against thieves stealing the painkillers, mouthwash and laxatives from behind the counter of the local shop. The consequences on a thief's bowels of an unprescribed illegal intake of some co-codamol is something I find too painful to contemplate. But it would be nice if these legislating zealots were made to live with the consequences of THEIR actions. I believe it was Stanley Baldwin who spoke of power without responsibility - the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.