Voices is the Dorset Echo's weekly youth page - written for young people by young people.

This week Billy Sullivan discusses NHS cuts.

As reported in the Echo, Dorset County Hospital may struggle to hit its target of saving £7.6 million this year.

By the end of the first three months of the financial year, the hospital still needs to make £1.7 million of cuts - but it has yet to identify where the savings will come from.

An internal report said the Dorchester hospital needs to save 4.3 per cent of its turnover.

The higher than planned nursing agency rate is partly why pay costs are already over budget and a cheaper alternative than agency nurses is oversea recruits.

When the hospital governors last met in May, Patricia Miller, trust chief executive, said nurses had already been recruited from Dubai to plug staff shortages.

But I think we need to ask ourselves why are they needed? Why are are there NHS staff shortages?

It is because of the horrific budget cuts that hospitals up and down the nation are facing.

Staff are being overworked because the NHS can not support more workers which leads to less staff being able to help people, support people and to save peoples lives.

Staff are having to deal with more and more patients but with less and less help.

Patients are suffering but so are the doctors, nurses and all the NHS staff who save the public.

If we drive our NHS to destruction and more people leave their professions, then who is going to help us when we are in need? When my brother had his appendix removed, the amazing staff at the hospital gave him around-the-clock care and thanks to their expertise he was out within a day.

But the best part - there was no charge.

We take the NHS for granted. The treatments and procedures that we receive are free at the point of care.

If we keep treating the NHS like this at the same rate, then there will be no NHS to help, support and save us.

By Billy Sullivan