Dear Sir,

I must admit I have been involved with conducting only one survey some 30 years ago, so I am not an expert in that field. I recently volunteered to take part in the Bermuda Government’s health survey. I was sorely disappointed in the format. The time for the Zoom meeting was given in Caracas time — that was a bad start, so I asked for it in Bermuda time.

It started off with questions on mobility: 1, Can you walk? 2, Do you need assistance to walk? 3, Do you need a wheelchair? All reasonable questions. Later we get to the stage A or B. A, Would you prefer to live five years with a good quality of life, or B, Would you prefer to live five years with a good quality of life and ten years in a wheelchair? So my response was A. (Inferring one would be dead after five or 15 years.)

Then we go to A. Would you prefer to live ten years with a good quality of life and die; or B, ten years and ten years in a wheelchair before you die? My response was this is not relevant, but the interviewer insisted. At my age, I am going to be dead in the next ten years and unless there is a miracle and medical science is able to give me a guarantee, there is not a hope in hell of me living another 20 years. The lady doing the survey was very polite and I told her I had nothing against her, she was only doing her job — the questions were not relevant. We were not getting anywhere, so after some 30 minutes, I terminated the interview

I am not going into every question asked and the above is my recollection of some of them. My view is that this is again a complete waste of taxpayers’ money. How much is this exercise going to cost?

Further to this, there was yet another survey.

I could hardly hear the person. (No, I do not need a hearing aid.). I was asked what are my main concerns and the person had problems transcribing my answers. He spoke English but obviously was not fluent in the language.

Why are people being employed to do surveys in a British colony whose primary language is not English?

That is the main reason I do not normally participate in telephone surveys. This time I thought I would participate; it was a bad decision!

ANTONY SIESE

Paget