As we walked to the fields, a boy who seemed to have played his game was leaving.

His head was down, but two of us could see that his face was contorted and upset.

Behind him a few metres away, a man was loudly calling him 'Mary'.

Such derision and humiliation of a child is unacceptable. For a child to endure this from a person important to them cuts at their self-esteem.

All adults should do what is best for their child, putting the child's interests above their own.

Shocked and taken aback, we did not respond then. Now, we hope the parent sees this, thinks and changes their ways.

Let's care for our children and grandchildren.

I wish to congratulate Dr Nick Stephenson for convening and announcing the fourth annual Reginal Medical Specialists Association conference to be held in Wagga Wagga this Saturday ("Rural health needs in focus", The Daily Advertiser, May 26).

Increasingly seriously ill regional medical patients in Wagga city and surrounding towns are gradually benefiting in recent years with more radiology and associated specialist facilities, and importantly many of our specialist doctors, surgeons and oncologists and radiologists are now permanently resident.

Nevertheless, many patients - and many of our local families and children - still have to travel from distant locations to Sydney and other major city centres and facilities, for example Leeton, Griffith and Dubbo which do not have PET scan facilities and trained specialist staff and also require overnight accommodation and air travel etc.

A recent example was the member of our family last Tuesday, a patient waiting surgery in Sydney that was rescheduled by a week after extended accommodation and air travel by the patient and family members from Wagga and Dubbo.

This would be a frequent occurrence experienced by many.

I wish Dr Stephenson and his medical colleagues every success with their endeavours at this week's conference and continue the great work so far. Good luck.

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On election night I watched the aftermath of the event for a short time on the television.

Two Coalition members, one a frontbencher, the other a backbencher who had lost their seats, both blamed their losses on the Coalition's dismissive treatment of women and a negative attitude toward climate change.

I wondered where those two, and other Coalition members, have been hiding over the past years.

Time and time again, people have raised these and other concerns, however the warning messages were ignored.

Don't blame the caring people, look further up the ladder.

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