Your exclusive report on surgeon training to save rural hospitals (Helen Puttick, February 11) could not have come at a more opportune time.

The thousands of people campaigning to save the current services at the Vale of Leven Hospital have been arguing for such an approach for the past 10 years and more.

Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board maintains that the Vale is unsustainable in its present format without anaesthetic cover. This new report clearly shows the way forward to maintain and enhance the services at the Vale.

Your exclusive is another significant part of the weight of evidence and professional opinion from the royal colleges and others that the board's centralising agenda is out-of-date.

What is of most concern to the Vale campaigners is that the members of Scotland's largest board seemed to be unaware of this evidence and opinion and have closed their collective mind to offering real options for consideration by the local community and Cabinet Secretary.

If respected clinicians have confidence in this initiative for our rural hospitals, how can Greater Glasgow and Clyde continue to peddle the spurious argument that patients would be at risk? It's time for the board's collective mind to be prised open.

Graeme McCormick Arden, by Loch Lomond.

again, gps have come under attack for seemingly overprescribing anti-depressants. Here is my simple solution - give patients a good job, a decent house to live in and some self-respect back in their lives. Then see how many of them come to a gp in desperation for something to ease their daily misery. Perhaps they could see their politician one evening or on a Saturday morning to arrange the afore-mentioned "cure".

Dr Robert McGonigle, Dumbarton Health Centre.

Note to Dr William O Thomson, who appears to suggest that GPs should turn the clock back 40 years (Letters, February 8) - in the 1960s I saw a steam train. It worked well and the passengers liked it.

Dr Alex Dowers, Glasgow.

It is amazing how the wheel turns. When I was with the Western Regional Hospital Board in the 1960s, the areas mentioned in Helen Puttick's article about a new breed of surgeon had, in fact, a general surgeon who lived locally. I remember particularly Oban, which had an outstanding, fully qualified one. They said that when he walked down the street, people stood aside.

Some areas had GP surgeons with limited training who worked well within their limitations. There was a story of Sir John Brotherston, Chief Medical Officer, Scotland, visiting a cottage hospital and being told to wait as the matron was giving an anaesthetic and the GP was doing a partial gastrectomy.

Dr William O Thomson, Bothwell, Lanarkshire.

Regarding the proposals that GPs should be available for consultations in the evening and at weekends, can we now look forward to similar proposals for solicitors, accountants, architects, bankers, etc, so that we can all consult our professional advisers without taking time off work to do so? I can remember a time, all too painfully, when a GP consulted morning and evening, with house calls in between, further house calls in the later evening and an on-call commitment overnight. No doctor should have to make important decisions while chronically tired. We should not be considering turning the clock back.

H MacAnespie, Glasgow.