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Letter from Hong Kong (6 January 2022)

So now we are entering the third year of this global pandemic. It is changing, evolving and is bringing out the very best and the very worst in humanity. Science and scientists have had a real bashing, but then who by? Quacks, aardvarks and gobbeldygooks. Looking back is looking forward.

Globe trotter: Vasant Oswal launches memoir

Vasant Oswal was brought up in an era when public transport in India relied on horses. From humble beginnings in Pune in the western state of Maharashtra, he went on to become a pioneer in laser surgery in the larynx. He would also receive a Fellowship by Election at the Royal College of Surgeons, not to mention serving as Editor in Chief of ENT and Audiology News.

The scandal of NHS contracts with the independent healthcare sector

Since March 2020 it was sensible medical practice to consider making all possible beds in the NHS available to potentially admit ill patients with COVID-19. The expected admission rate was supposed to risk overwhelming the NHS, so independent sector facilities apparently volunteered and were then contracted to the NHS as priority, with full remuneration for their losses, and all private practitioners were effectively frozen out from seeing, admitting and operating on their own self pay patients.