I was angry, shocked and appalled to learn that the Royal College of Nursing is in the process of evicting former lifetime nurses from the John Howard Cottages in Brighton, a charity formed by the philanthropist Sir John Howard in the 1920s (The Argus, November 14).

This scenario brought back painful memories of the brutal evicition of my late mother-inlaw from a Wrexham private care home in 2002.

It also reminded me of similarly shameful evictions performed by Scope. It evicted 16 cerebral palsy adults from their bungalows in 2005, because the "charity" was offered huge amounts of money by developers for the site in Cyncoed, Cardiff, the most expensive part of the city where houses sell for £1 million plus.

In May 2005, in my fruitless attempt to stop these brutal and inhumane evictions, I wrote to the patron of Scope, Cherie Blair, receiving the following reply from the direct communications unit at No 10 Downing Street: "Mrs Blair is aware of the difficult decisions Scope has made about service changes and understands why they have been taken."

As one who has conducted a six-year campaign for the introduction of protective legislation, seeking legal tenure for the 500,000 disabled, frail and vulnerable people in British care homes, and whose written evidence was accepted along with 38 other individuals and organisations in the report published on August 14 by the House of Lords and House of Commons joint committee on human rights, The Human Rights Of Older People In Healthcare. The appalling treatment of former nurses faced with eviction from the John Howard Cottages in Brighton leads me to believe that we have now become an extremely uncaring society because the "calculator" has now clearly established firm precedence over the "stethoscope" and God help us all in our old age and infirmity.

  • Ken Mack, Crathie Place, Rhosddu, Wrexham