Will the harm be ignored?

Professors Wilkinson and Pickerton, co-authors of The Spirit Level, leave no doubt that increasing inequalities in wealth in a society is harmful to overall levels of public health.

This includes physical health and mental wellbeing as social inequalities put pressures on us as social beings.

A recent “charitable” investment decision means money that was put aside to address the social consequences of the oil industry in Shetland is now set to make a few folk visibly richer, thereby increasing inequality and worsening public health.

How will this fact be treated in the long awaited health impact study? Will the harm to Shetland’s collective wellbeing be ignored?

Pete Hamilton
Sundibanks,
Scalloway