I READ with great sadness the article in The Press last week of the complaints about York Hospital – and everything is true where the elderly are concerned.

I was in ward 25 and spent 15 days there. I was refused when I asked the sister and a staff nurse to put drops in my ear, which I had an infection in, and in my eyes (I shake a bit and can’t do it).

I was told to ask one of the others. I asked three others and they didn’t know how to do it. My visitors and my son had to do it. You have to be a patient to see what goes on.

When I worked at St Mary’s Hospital 46 years ago, my patients were someone’s mum or dad. We did seven nights in a row, 12-hour shifts.

We were short of nurses then, sometimes on your own with 26 patients and a runner for 30 minutes to help you and nothing is being done to the elderly to keep us. The problem is little trained staff.

I would like to say a big thank-you to my consultant, Dr Hall, his team and the staff in this unit, who were all wonderful.

But the NHS still needs a shake-up.

Margaret Snowden, Priory Wood Way, Huntington, York.