IN a week when Wirral lost £80m of central Government funding, who could ignore the concerns expressed in the Globe by Brian Donaldson, chairman of the Wirral Carers Association.

Without public support it seems that two of the remaining three council care homes and local day care centres may be targeted for closure.

Alarm is justified.

Those who care for disabled and chronically ill relatives will recall the over-charging scandal involving people in the local "care" system, by this council, even before austerity cuts struck home.

Those carers who have seen how council agents have treated the mentally disordered in particular over the years will also be alarmed.

It is therefore ironic to read in the same Globe that levels of medical absence among council employees have increased well beyond target due to anxiety, stress, and depression.

These are symptoms very familiar to carers and their charges and I am sure Wirral carers will be sympathetic ... except towards those council agents who have mistreated their disabled.

Perhaps these health problems among their own staff will encourage council bosses to show more compassion to citizens with mental disorders.

Yet the council responses in the Globe report seem more concerned with diverting the blame and guarding the council from "legal challenge."

What a pity that the plague of mental disability and chronic illness does not fall on those who most deserve it.

As you sow, so may you reap.

Professor D P Gregg (retired) by email.