I was angry and horrified to read the letter of John Whitelegg from the Green Party in your paper of October 24.

I think he is being a little misleading.

There is no mention in his letter of the Ambulance Service, one of the vital services who have no press officer, therefore their deeds slip by unnoticed, and never threaten strike action.

If he had done his homework properly and fairly, he would have discovered that a qualified paramedic who has to re-qualify every three years, is paid £ 21,984 per annum.

Their conditions of work are far more strict and, due to very limited resources, their work is made more difficult and their work loads much heavier.

Paramedics who work on the North West Air Ambulance have to undertake regular additional training, just for the priviledge of doing the job.

The risks to their lives are so much greater that they are told to inform insurance companies that they are undertaking a dangerous job.

No more allowance is given for any increase in insurance, and they are still paid £21,984 per annum.

The funding to start this service all came from charitable donations, and only in recent months have the NHS, through government funding, agreed to pay only paramedic wages.

All the other costs, the aircraft, its fuel, medical kit carried, special fire proof uniforms, helmets, boots, pilots, engineers, mess room facilities and the training to air crew standards in order to be able to go in a helicopter are all still to be funded by charitable donations and, until recently, the small team of paramedics have been giving up their own time free of charge to help towards the costs by doing charitable talks and organising and running charitab

le events.

Also the retirement age for firefighters is 55, but paramedics have to work until 65, most of whom do not make it due to pure body fatigue.

The firefighters pension arrangements are also much more favourable than the paramedics.

The only reason the fire bregade is always to the fore is because they have a PR officer, the ambulance service do not have this luxury so get forgotten.

Finally, perhaps the firefighters may be worth £30,000 per annum, but if so, the ambulance personel should also be paid the same, if not more, due to the comparable number of callouts, and the huge personal responsiblities in life and death decision making, drug administration, and also putting their own lives at risk every working day.

We have family in both services and I know who works hardest.

So, Mr.

Whitelegg, next time you go to the press, please be fair, and give a little more thought to your arguement beforehand - or are we just talking political points here?

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