There was a time when it was said that: "An apple a day keeps the doctor away", now it's more likely to be malpractice insurance. But joking aside, we can count ourselves lucky in this country to have a corps of dedicated doctors, nurses and medical staff, who serve us so well.

That is, when their intolerable administrative burden allows them to practise their profession without the hindering interference they get from their political masters.

Much of the public's criticism levelled at the National Health Service is about the length of waiting time for specialist appointments.

In this respect, the hospital administrative staff also have their problems, in that their time may be wasted when, for one reason or another, patients do not take up planned appointments, and fail to notify the department concerned in time for another patient to be summoned to attend.

So why does this happen?

You would think that a short telephone call to the hospital in good time would be all that was needed to arrange an alternative date to attend, or discuss any other matter about the appointment.

Not always so, I'm afraid.

A couple of weeks ago I received a letter from the York District Hospital. Without preamble, it stated: "We have arranged an appointment for you to come to Mr. Another's XYZ clinic..."

Not being aware of anything being wrong with my XYZ, I rang the number provided in the letter. In fact I rang it several times during the day but got no response, the phone being either engaged or inactive.

I also tried the hospital's main switch-board but, surprisingly, no response - just varying unobtainable signals.

I tried again two days later and eventually got through to the XYZ department, which proved to be a wasted call.

Now I'm not suggesting that hospital switchboards are left unattended or that the operators spend their time reading or knitting. I'm sure that's not true and they are kept very busy. But with all the advanced telephonic equipment at our disposal these days, you would think that it shouldn't take umpteen attempts to get through to a hospital.

I wonder if the XYZ department has an e-mail address?

The headline: "Jobs and families don't work for mums" recently caught my eye. Of course they don't, and it's high time that everyone realised that bringing up children is a full-time job, and a most important one at that.

Having children for grandparents, or child-minders to look after is not playing the game of parenthood.

It's the mother who holds a family together, and it's better that mothers remain at home until their children can be relied upon to look after themselves.

If that again became the accepted practice, the figures for unemployment, juvenile crime, and under-age smoking and drinking would plummet.

Yes, I know I've stuck my neck out on this one, but think about it a bit before you come at it with your choppers.

Regular readers may remember that I recently wrote about the attention vandals were giving to York's newly-erected bus shelters. Sadly, the vandalism hasn't stopped with graffiti; it has now worsened with the smashing of glass panels in some of the shelters.

What is so surprising about this explosion-sounding criminal damage is that nobody sees, or hears it being done.

Mindless yobbos are not the only ones to damage bus shelters, drivers who imagine they are taking part in a Grand Prix at Silverstone, rather than driving through a residential estate, have run into them.