IN REPLY to A P Cox’s letter (Letters, Wednesday).

Over the last few years I have been acting as a patient for student doctors two or three times a year.

I am only too pleased to offer my services to the York Hospital and the Medical Profession, having over the last five years been have been in need several times of their expert skills.

My day in the teaching ward of the hospital involves a student doctor interviewing me regarding my original symptoms, the prognosis given by my own doctor, the follow-up to the hospital treatment and consequent follow-up to the present time.

The examination is overseen by a GP and a consultant, and the student is marked by the examiners on their bedside skills, asking the correct questions and a short medical examination.

In a conversation in between the student changeovers I put to the examination team the same point made by A P Cox . The reply made me think long and hard.

Is someone who drinks to excess any less deserving than say a runner, a football player a tennis player or any other sports person injuring themself.

After all they get their kicks out sport, just as a drinker gets his kicks out of drinking.

It’s a very slippery slope to go down charging people for hurting themselves at play.

A visit to A&E in a southern island incurs a 100 euro charge no mater the circumstances. Drinking is a curse but to charge them, I just don’t know. I feel if we go down this road the only people to suffer will be ordinary citizens.

D M Deamer, Penleys Grove Street, Monkgate, York