A phone call and within 15 minutes, two medics were at my front door.

They both were smiling, young ladies who knew exactly what to do as they worked in perfect unison to get me ready for hospital. Within the hour, I was admitted to the emergency ward.

Again, within five minutes, I was being treated by dctors and nurses in this beehive of sick and accident invalid people.

Hours later, I was supposed to be sent to a recovery room with beds, there was no recovery rooms or beds.Thank goodness that night, there were no emergencies.

Why should these wonderful people have to go on strike action to make our so called leaders do something?

Barry Milner, Ravenswood.

THANK you, Dick James, (Letters, The Examiner, June 18), well said. 

The Eat Street food vans in High Street created a perfect meeting place for family and friends. Visitors were pretty impressed, too. It is a great community environment for everyone to share.

Seeing the children playing and the picnic rugs and deck chairs out, it was good to see. Where else in Launceston has this worked so well?

It was so disappointing to see bureaucratic interference. It appears to have certainly put a damper on it for the van operators.

Full marks to the council, which has done a lot of work to improve the setting.

But to impose unnecessary financial barriers to the operators seemed quite out of touch with the whole concept. 

I agree that the traffic conditions needed to be addressed. But can we get some commonsense into the debate?

No local eateries are affected by the food vans. Most are shut well before they start cooking.

Gil Sellars, Launceston.

ALL THIS hullabaloo over GST equalisation and how “poor” Western Australia has been treated.

We should re-establish the principles behind equity and the fact that all states belong to one nation, Australia.

If Western Australia considers itself hard done, by receiving less in return per GST dollar than other states and demands a bigger return, are they in turn prepared to share the largess from the mineral boom days and their continuing financial advantages from mining?

Do the vast mineral resources of Australia belong to all Australians or just those that happen to live in that state? Surely any redistribution of tax dollars should ensure that all Australians share the same standard of living with regard to public services such as roads, hospitals and schools.

Jeff Jennings, Bridport.

I WANT traffic lights at the Mowbray Connector. I have lived at Windermere for the past 13 years and travel to Launceston via this intersection most days and usually at peak traffic times.

A roundabout would favour the traffic travelling north including to Mowbray. Southbound traffic would be held up as more and more people use this intersection when they realise how much easier it will be to get across the traffic to go into Mowbray. 

Traffic lights would give all traffic a go and make it safer to use. Do any of the aldermen who are against traffic lights actually live in the Northern Suburbs or East Tamar region or use this road with peak traffic?

The East Tamar Highway is getting increasingly busy. The flow of traffic needs urgent attention. Get the traffic lights already in place synchronised properly as a priority.

Eddie Brown, Windermere.

HAS anyone noticed a decline in trout numbers in the Meander River (below the dam) since the Meander Dam went in?

It hasn’t affected platypus numbers as much, as they are able to walk for miles across land.

The trout go as far as they can upstream to spawn. Many of those trout were above the dam when it was constructed.

Any that breach the dam wall when (and only when) it’s overflowing, plummet 120 metres to their death. The health of the river should not be judged by platypus numbers alone.

Keeping the river’s water level at the same height all year has caused slime and algae to build up on the rocks that line the bottom of the river, making foraging and navigation for fish even more difficult.

A.R. Trounson, Needles.

COULD anybody tell me why in this new look development at Civic Square in Launceston, are X-rays of humans in ugly green steel frames? Does this development attract more tourist to this area?

Willem Raak, Clarence Point.

HERE’S a thought, why not move York Park to the Newnham campus site and give the University of Tasmania all the Inveresk precinct?

At least then, when climate change or global warming, whichever occurs first, make the whole area uninhabitable, we’ll still be able to watch the football with dry feet. Lots of parking is another bonus. Bit rough on the university, but it was their move.

Ron Baines, Kings Meadows.

I TOTALLY agree with Peter Doddy (The Examiner, July 12). 

What a disgrace to give prisoners a “time out”. The families affected don’t get one. Why should the perpetrators of crimes get a break? The judicial system has lost the plot if this idea is upheld. 

The law is a joke. Our wonderful police do all they can then someone decides it’s OK to let them out.

F. O’Sullivan, Riverside.