I AM a law-abiding resident and have paid my taxes and council tax for more than 30 years in the hope that this money would be spent wisely and efficiently, for the benefit of all members of the community.

I have worked in the care sector for almost 20 years and the changes I have seen in recent years have shocked and disgusted me, until I feel I can no longer keep silent.

I have never been politically-minded but have never felt such anger and outrage at the way Bury Council treats its elderly residents, most of whom have lived through at least one world war, and won freedom and democracy for our country.

The fees Bury Council pays for residential and nursing care is derisory beyond belief. Expecting such homes to look after their residents on a 24-hour care basis, feed and bathe them, often give free physiotherapy, occupational therapy, entertainment, and with the demand for a decent standard of care -- which they so deserve -- for £33 and £50 per day respectively, is an absolute disgrace.

Every other council pays a better rate than this, some as much as £100 per week more for residential and £200 for nursing.

The criteria "goalposts" for residential and nursing care have moved so far that all residential people being funded now are so ill that they need constant 24-hour care. They are usually suffering from some form of dementia, have had strokes, heart attacks, or are doubly incontinent. Some even have leg ulcers and are insulin dependent. All of them would have been subject to nursing care a couple of years ago.

The council is showing a total lack of responsibility towards its elderly residents because it feels that they are expendable. They are not. They deserve better care than this, and their families and everyone concerned in elderly care will make sure that they get what they deserve.

The people these families so reluctantly place in care may not have a voice any more, but we have and we will make our voices known in every way possible.

A decent fees structure for decent care is all that we ask for. They manage to find the funding needed for their own council-run care homes which, in my opinion, is a disgusting, perverse form of favouritism. Are council homes making a profit or even breaking even? No, of course they are not!

How short-sighted can they be that they cannot see if you force all the private homes out of business, the problems within the health service will prove fatal for everyone concerned.

I have had cases where prospective residents -- meeting all the criteria -- have been kept in hospital for weeks longer than necessary, because funding is not available from the social services.

Bury's constituents are not idiots and we refuse to be treated as such. If the council is incapable of running its financial affairs in a professional and fair way then it should be replaced with people who can.

Money has become available from the Government which has not been used for the purposes for which it was given -- to free up NHS beds and to care for people in residential and nursing care in a proper and decent way.

This problem, and our fight, will not go away and I plead with Bury Council to think long and hard and fight for the rights of our elderly.

There but for the grace of God go I. None of us stays young for ever. Please treat these elderly people as you would want to be treated.

ANNE KAHN (Mrs),

Beechcroft,

Prestwich.