Digital Hearing Aids

My wife has a long-standing grievance with me. I have a very retentive memory except for things she wants me to so. But it’s not for want of my hearing herself give me the instructions. Others are not so lucky.

My twentieth speech in debate since coming to Parliament was on digital hearing aids. And my own experience suggests that the deaf and hard of hearing suffer one of the most isolating afflictions.

I used to have a number of blind people worked for me. And one very hard of hearing.

Our blind staff had the sharpest memories on the team. They rapidly became our talking reference books. They remembered while the rest of were content to go back and search the textbook. We valued their contribution immensely.

But our deaf colleague had a much harder time. His occasional lack of understanding was because he didn’t catch quite what we said. Visitors sometimes thought him rude. He was never that. And he always making allowance for our failure to understand his sometimes difficult speech. It was quite humbling.

Today there is an opportunity to help the hard of hearing. The new digital hearing aids can help. They don’t whistle. They don’t amplify sounds that are already being heard. But they aren’t available in Scotland on the Health Service. Unless you are a child and live in the Highlands.

So that’s what our debate was about. It emerged that people attending a clinic in Elgin might get a digital hearing if Highland Health Board sent them there. But if it was Grampian – no chance!

I ending my speech on this subject with a comment from my wife. “It’s not hard of hearing you are. It’s hard of heeding!”

Let’s hope that the New Labour – Liberal coalition listen our call for better hearing aids from the Health Service. And aren’t hard of heeding.

Victims no more

As a member of a Justice Committee in the Parliament, I’m part of an investigation into how Scotland’s prosecution service is working. And pretty depressing much of it has been.

The fiscals across Scotland are clearly over-stretched – and my postbag also tells me that’s true locally. The High Court is probably worse. But what has come as a real shock, is how victims, and victims’ families, are treated by the system.

This week we heard from two families who had suffered as the hands of prosecutors.

The first family had a member murdered. Two men were charged. After the prosecution evidence was completed, one was discharged. The remaining accused then promptly blamed the other man. And the jury brought in a Not Proven verdict.

Now, while the family members were very disappointed at the outcome and at the poor way in which the prosecution was conducted, their major beef was something different.

It seems there’s no way to deal with complaints about a prosecution. And the fiscal who appears to have conducted this case so abysmally got made a judge. His conduct still hasn’t been assessed because there’s no way to do it.

The other family told a similar story. In their case they also had to travel to court seven times, and 50 miles each way, before the case even started. And the communication with them? Abysmal to non-existent.

Let’s hope our Committee report makes a difference. This is precisely why we need a Scots Parliament.

Positively Public

I’m sitting here sucking a lollipop. And why? Well I’m just back from the launch of the ‘positively public’ campaign. The lollipop is one of these little reminders handed out by event organisers to remind you you’ve been there.

So what is it? The trade union UNISON represents workers throughout the public services, especially in the Health Service. They have long had grave concerns about PFI or PPP – both often privatising their members’ jobs. So the campaign is designed to make us think positively about public services.

Now in the North-East we already have a public service ‘Beacon’, recognised as such by the government and endorsed by Jim Wallace, Justice Minister in an answer to an oral question in Parliament from me. It is? Peterhead Prison of course.

It remains a disgrace that over a year after plans were submitted to ministers, the uncertainty remains.

But the good news may be that the new First Minister has appointed a Minister for the Public Services and made his support clear.

Something quite simple might help aid understanding among politicians. I’ve suggested to UNISON and to the STUC that they lobby for better information about government spending. The current data are incomplete and it may be no surprise that MSPs and others don’t see the financial slight-of hand.

What you can’t see you can’t understand. Maybe that suits the government!