I HAVE recently been discharged after four weeks in Salisbury Hospital. During this time I was on A/E and four different wards.

I would like to share with your readers some of the amazing experiences I had and observed.

I saw nurses punched, kicked and even bitten, drinks thrown over them and often sworn at or called foul names. Much of this was done by patients with dementia but not all.

I heard an alcoholic patient run amok in the early hours of the morning when there are less staff on duty making it necessary for nurses to call for help from security. This was on a ward with very sick patients continually needing all the time and skill that the nurses were struggling to give. I saw this dealt with always with professionalism, kindness and compassion and sometimes with the right kind of humour – with the patient, not at the patient.

The proposed one per cent pay rise in the light of what I experienced and witnessed hardly seems just or adequate.

We are truly blessed to have this wonderful hospital in our community.

From consultant to cleaner, every member of staff that helped me to diagnosis and treatment treated me with respect, always involving me in my care.

SHIRLEY LUNN Redlynch