JOHN Morrison (Cunning ploy, November 29), taking up the theme of a letter from me published in these pages in September regarding the new appointments procedure at the Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary, deplores the difficulty in now arranging a meaningful appointment date to see a consultant there.

Should his wife, despairing of ever seeing a consutant and seeking help elsewhere, try to have her name removed from the ''waiting list for the waiting list'', she will most likely discover to her surprise, as I did, that it is as difficult to have one's name removed from that list as it is uncertain to know when an appointment might actually become available.

Notwithstanding my writing as requested to the manager, patient administration, to have my name removed from the list and receiving confirmation that it had been, I have just received notification from the appointments centre that my lucky Ticket Number 6000 (I jest not!) has scooped a minor prize in the great waiting-list-for-the-waiting-list-lottery in that I ''am now approaching the top of the waiting list for an appointment''.

Darrell Desbrow,

Overholm, Dalbeattie.