Back up arguments with hard evidence YOUR report (‘Operations to be scrapped’, 11th January 11) states that ‘county health campaigners have condemned junior doctors’ actions as “regrettable”'.
Yet you mention only one such campaigner, Healthwatch, whose chairman has expressed ‘disappointment’, not condemnation.
So who are these condemning others? By not naming them, and by not making it clear with whom or what Healthwatch is ‘disappointed’, your report gives an entirely negative impression of a complex question, on which we need information, not bias.
As a member of Southampton Keep Our NHS Public (SKONP) a major campaigner in the area which keeps in touch with many such campaigners (http://keepournhspublic.wix.com/skonp), I can say we know of no such open condemnation.
As an apolitical organisation, our goal has been to seek an publicise evidence-based arguments on both sides. The doctors have provided many examples of these, but the government has not seen fit to answer them with similarly evidence-based arguments.
Instead, the Department of Health have dug in their heels, and chosen to spin and distort a complex case at every stage. What’s really disappointing is that the Echo seems to have done the same.
Jane Freeland
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