Letter: Still impotent? Blame Labour

YOUR ARTICLE, "You're too old for sex at 40..." (15 February) regarding the rationing of impotency treatment for middle-aged men highlights the difficulties faced by GPs forced to ration healthcare in an underfunded NHS.

The costs of treating a man with injections for impotency (assuming sex twice a week over a year) is over pounds 800. That some patients can obtain this treatment and some cannot, depending on where they live or who treats them, is due to the unfair system in which doctors work.

The fact is that at present individual GPs, and in the future larger groups of GPs in primary healthcare groups, will continue to make decisions about the rationing of healthcare which some sections of society find arbitrary, unfair or difficult to accept. In a fair system rationing of what the NHS can or cannot afford should be done centrally and openly. However, it is my view that the Government, having inherited convenient scapegoats for the failure of NHS funding, do not have the courage to address this.

Dr PM Spowage

Colchester, Essex