Surgeon's experience should not be lost (1)

I was amazed to read your front-page report last Sunday ('Archaic clause forces surgeon to retire'). Surely this is a case of bureaucracy gone mad! It is so obviously incorrect to impose such archaic laws within the civil service, that I do not know...

I was amazed to read your front-page report last Sunday ('Archaic clause forces surgeon to retire'). Surely this is a case of bureaucracy gone mad! It is so obviously incorrect to impose such archaic laws within the civil service, that I do not know what all the fuss is all about.

Parliament can either rescind this law when it refers to badly needed officers, or the government may decide to bypass it for the sake of the community. Either way, that is what a democracy is all about.

It may interest the Department of Health and the minister, that the Leicester Hospital Trust, of which I am a member, has no fewer than 28 orthopaedic surgeons working in its hospitals. Some of these are well over 61. In Britain doctors are obliged to retire at 70, unless there is an overwhelming need of their services in a particular area. To insist on compelling Mr Carmel Sciberras to retire at 61 is ludicrous. These days it is a relatively young age.

The experience of such a person is immeasurable.

That experience can be passed on to the younger set, apart from anything else.

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