From Mr C. Morris, MRPharmS
SIR,-I feel I have to answer a few criticisms voiced in the letters page in the PJ of July 8.
Mr James tells us he has been a member of the Society for 38 years and that he has been ashamed by the thinking of some of his colleagues. I have to say I have only had membership for six years but I now know how he feels. How someone who has received a fellowship of the said body can read two letters from a member and then infer that that member hangs around Newquay saloon bars is beyond me.
I would like to point out to Mr James that I come from a working class background. I was the first member of my family to go to university and all of my childhood friends are working class. They are all hard-working and struggle to pay bills, etc. There are other people in my own town that I know who spend all day in the pub complaining about how they have not got any money because they are on "social".
I cannot afford to hang around Newquay bars. I have to work six days a week to pay my tax, mortgage and bills, also my student loans that I had to get to get through university.
The areas I have worked in (Cornwall, Plymouth and Exeter) have all had relatively high levels of unemployment and many people I saw were fed up with being unemployed. But many more scooped up all the free cash they could get their hands on, only wishing they had more hands!
I would also point out that I understand the problem of working mothers, but the people I am talking about are those who could just not be bothered. Any mother who will not take their sick child to the doctor because of a two-mile journey and then having to wait in the surgery, and then a wait in the pharmacy, should, in my opinion, be punished.
I do agree that there are good and bad attitudes in all walks of life. I would have thought that that would go without saying and I take exception to the people I see in the shop with bad attitudes, of which there are many.
One of the pharmacies I work in is in a surgery. I regularly see mothers with sick children come in for prescriptions for Calpol. Occasionally the doctors have not written the prescription and, rather than pay £1.29 for their sick child, these mothers make the child wait for 30 minutes so they do not have to pay.
Many of the people I see do not see our social security system as a crutch; they see it as a God-given right. Why should they have to pay for anything?
Chris Morris
Newquay, Cornwall