Sir, - Alison O'Connor refers (February 15th) to the "Saturday superstition" keeping patients in a hospital bed for an extra day. The opposite was my experience. For 40 years which I spent as a GP in a County Down village, we personally delivered our maternity eases in a GP unit in Banbridge Hospital.
In those days the mothers and babies stayed in hospital for a week alter delivery, a "holiday" they all enjoyed and one which I felt they needed. However if the day of discharge fell on a Saturday, many but not all pleaded to be allowed home on the Friday. This was a request I dared not refuse!
I expect that this superstition is just as strongly held in Northern Ireland as elsewhere in the South of Ireland. - Yours, etc.,
Gilford, Craigavon, Co Armagh.