Age-related Macular Degeneration isn't something Mr Roberts, or his wife, could avoid, it can happen to anyone. My mother has it and getting treatment or even advice in the UK from the NHS is a joke. It's cheaper in the long run to treat AMD than care for a blind person but the economics of this escapes the NHS managers. My 74 year old father has waited 6 months for a chronic, foul ear infection just to see a specialist and now faces a further 4 months wait for an operation. Being forced to pay NHS contributions all his life means he, like countless others, has no money to pay for private care and suffers horrendous pain. Poor Mr Roberts, was this country what he risked his life fighting for? We are all shamed by this.

Dr Duncan Potter, Edinburgh, Midlothian

Crimininal, shameful atrocity.This makes you want to howl. I'd be happy to lay my hands on the culprits.

eileen, manchester, UK

These people are, I am afraid, truly wicked. The wickedness is of a truly British sort, quiet, reasonable, even in some cases well intentioned. But what is happening is wicked.

They took Mr Roberts savings by making subscription to the NHS compulsory. This meant the Roberts had no money left to fund their own treatment. They then refused to treat them, basically condemning them to blindness. They spent all the money that should go to drugs and health care on idiotic computer systems that no sane structured health service system would need. They spent it on adminstrative salaries, or bits of art to hang in entrance halls.

They then refused to discipline their work force, so that nurses with dirty hands in dirty hospitals go from patient to patient spreading infections. And finally, they infected him and killed him.

And there is nothing any of us can do about this, except pay again to go abroad to be treated in properly run hospitals.

George Johnson, London,