Sacred Cows

Lucky old India has the sacred cow.

Poor old Britain has two scared cows: The NHS and Islam. Dare talk rationally about either of them and you will be treated like a heretic or a phobic.

Worst GP Practices Named by Care Quality Commission

And they are:

Dr Harira Syed. Nye Bevan House, Rochdale, Greater Manchester.

Dr Michael John Florin. Norris Road Surgery, Sale, Greater Manchester.

Dr David Ian Andrew Smith, Dr. Yvonne Eleanor Mary Owen. The Wolds Practice, Tetford, Lincs.

Kingshurst Medical Practice, Birmingham.

Dr Arup Kumar RANA, Dr Nnaemeka Uchendu NJOKU. Northfield Surgery, Doncaster.

Dr Satish Patel, Newtown, Reading.

Dr Anantt Ramanlal Dayah, Dr Vandana Mannan. Long Street Surgery, Wigston, Leicestershire.

Dr Amar Hussain, Dr Mike Borowicz, Dr Penelope Miller,Dr Bernadine Sharma, Dr Susan Grant, Dr Sohrab Panday, Dr Richard Trounce. 63 Lincoln Road Surgery, Peterborough.

Dr Sheraz Hassan,Dr Graham David Butchart. King Street Surgery in Burton-on-Trent. 

They have been told to improve or be closed.

Breastfeeding and John McCririck

Age-a terrible thing!

Thankfully John McCririck has lost his case against being old. He's the odious old prat who gobbed off, while waving his arms around dressed as Sherlock Holmes, boring us all to death as a racing 'pundit'. How much was wasted on that age discrimination case?

Meanwhile the government's bottomless pit of money, ie our taxes, is to be used to bung mothers £200 for the arduous task of breastfeeding their offspring. Madness.

Austerity eh?

Lies, Socialists and Hypocrisy

It never ceases to amaze me how the socialists constantly bang on about the Tories attempting to privatise the NHS. Since the late seventies I've heard lefty after lefty banging on about them privatising the NHS, and it hasn't happened yet. But still they are banging on about it. Lies, lies, lies. If only the Tories had the guts to do it I may consider voting for them again.

Then I still hear them banging on about Margaret Thatcher. Even now the loonier fringe of the socialist movement will blame Mrs Thatcher if there is an outbreak of flu. But then dare to blame the Labour governments from 1997 to 2010 for the financial mess we are in, or for the murderous mess they made of the NHS, and they claim innocence citing being ousted in 2010. Hypocrites as well as liars.

NHS Brainwashing

The caring NHS?

The brainwashed NHS freaks are getting ever more hysterical as needless deaths in that huge nationalised shambles are exposed. It reminds me of a clip on the TV news a while back, where a reporter in North Korea mentioned the name of their latest bloodthirsty despot, and the assembled zombies smiled and applauded his name. How sad.

The NHS is no different to any other industry, it has good points and bad.



The NHS is no different to any other industry, it has good staff and bad staff.

The NHS is no different to the bailed out banks, our tax cash pays for it.

The NHS is no different to insurance companies, if I crash my car, or my house floods, repairs are 'free at the point of delivery'.

So why oh why when needless deaths in the NHS are exposed do the zombies, like their comrades in North Korea, start screaming about how wonderful the NHS is and how it must be defended?

To me nationalised healthcare means politicians are in charge. To me politicians are stinking hypocrites out for numero uno. Why then, do people who spend 12 hours a day attacking politicians spend the other 12 drooling about the NHS? I can only think , unlike millions of us, that they haven't experienced the appalling service provided by so many hospitals.

Oh, and for the seriously NHS brainwashed please stop getting paranoid about the Tories privatising the NHS, it's terribly tedious. Cameron hasn't got the balls.

British Railways and the NHS

So the franchise process for the West Coast Mainline was cocked up by civil servants. No surprise there.

Nationalising our railways would effectively put them back under the control of politicians (the government) and civil servants. Do you trust our politicians and the state to get anything right? And remember, the Beeching Axe fell when our railways were nationalised, not when they were privately owned.

So who in their right minds would want government involved in any aspect of our railway system? In fact if our railway sytem is too important to leave to politicians and civil servants to cock up, then what about our healthcare?

Just a thought.

NHS Reality Check

Our local NHS Trust is constantly in the news, it is basically useless. The Independent, hardly a ranting right-wing free market advocating newspaper, gives an idea how bad it is in this article.  Then you can read about the killing of patients at Stepping Hill hospital in this BBC report. Also on the BBC website is this report about the tragic death of Emma Stones at Tameside Hospital.

I could go on listing the litany of abuse, avoidable deaths and sheer incompetence recorded in the National Health Service on a daily basis. I have personal experience of the filthy state of my local hospital and the poor standard of care provided by the nursing staff. My mother-in-law has been housebound for five years due to mistreatment at an NHS hospital. Virtually every person I know has experienced varying degrees of incompetence in the NHS.

Until we take a calm dispassionate look at the NHS the horror stories will continue to appear on an almost daily basis. We need to stop talking about NHS staff as if they are martyrs, they are not. They are doing a job, some highly motivated and competent some not, like in any other field.

Danny Boyle's opening Olympics ceremony was stunning. But why the soviet style propoganda glorification of the NHS? There should have been a minute's silence in memory of the Israeli athletes murdered by Palestians in Munich forty years ago. Maybe Danny Boyle should have included a tribute to those who have died needlessly in the NHS too.

Socialist Hypocrites

Manchester City Council wants to charge people for using the NHS. Where's the uproar? Free at point of delivery? Not if this Labour Council gets its way. Where are all the whining socialists who have been claiming these last 50 years that the Tories are about to privatise the glorious nationalised health system now Labour are actually threatening to charge for it?

Oh, it's for people using A&E because they've been drinking, so that's OK then. Well it's not OK actually, but I suppose now the gullible majority of the population have been softened up by the puritanical propaganda of the health fascists, they'll just accept it, 'for our own good'.

Well just think about this, drinking will be the thin end of the wedge, these things always are. If they get away with this what will be next? Maybe you end up breaking a leg on a football field on a Sunday morning. Silly boy, you chose to play a dangerous game, why should taxpayers pay for your treatment? You caused that nasty car crash did you? Well here's a bill for your treatment. Well, if you're daft enough to go jogging at your age, and in your condition, it's no surprise you've had a heart attack. Here's your bill for treatment.

Here are a few scenarios to ponder:

Fred is on his merry way home from the pub after 10 pints. He's perfectly merry but gets jumped by a couple of stone cold sober chavs who kick him unconscious and nick his wallet. When he is found unconscious by the police and taken to A&E does he have to pay? No witnesses.
Fred is on his merry way home from the pub after 10 pints. He's a violent prat when he's been drinking and kicks off a fight with a couple of lads on their way home. They run and he passes out. When he is found unconscious by the police and taken to A&E does he have to pay? No witnesses.

In 1980 a group of us had left the pub and were on our way to a club in Manchester. On Market Street I was kicking a can for a football. The girl I was with kicked the can and her clog flew off. As it did a friend of mine turned to say something to us and the clog hit him full on the nose. Hilarious for us, not for him, he ended up in A&E with a broken nose. He was drunk but the accident was not down to drink. Should he have had to pay?

And when people start whining about the cost to the NHS of dealing with drunks, remember how much those drinkers have put into the kitty in alcohol duty, income tax, national insurance and every other exhorbitant tax the government stings us for.

Remember, the thin end of the wedge.

Nanny State Induced Paranoia

One of my first posts a few years back was about a government TV advert in the run up to Christmas warning us not to undercook our turkeys as we could kill our families. Just what you need to build a happy Christmas atmosphere. It didn't apply to us anyway as we were having goose. A fine example of the nanny state in all its glory.

Currently there is a ridiculous state sponsored NHS advert warning us that we could be dying of bowel cancer if our 'poo' is a bit dodgy. Yes, nanny even calls it 'poo', as if preaching to a nation full of three year olds. I assume it is aimed at adults as all the sorrowful looking faces in the advert of the people who have been told their 'poo' indicates terminal illness are pretty old.

Yesterday I accompanied somebody to the local hospital. It involved spending a lot of time sat in the out-patients waiting room. If you ever have to spend time in a hospital waiting room please do not read the notices on the walls. Stare at the floor or ceiling or bury your face in a 1999 copy of National Geographic that you'll find on a formica table. The notices could quite easily induce a frightening level of paranoia.

To give you a flavour I saw Vera Duckworth on one poster informing me to be careful if I get out of breath when walking, it's probably not age or lack of fitness, it's probably emphysema. Another warned me that if my pee has changed colour, or I'm peeing more than usual, I probably have bladder cancer. There was another regarding my pee that warned I might have prostate cancer. At least the ones warning me I might have bowel cancer used the words 'stool' and 'faeces'  rather than 'poo'. I was also invited to an information session on drug and alcohol abuse, warning me that if I drink more than so many units of alcohol a week I'm probably dying of cirrhosis. Yet another warned me that if I have a pint then drive I will kill a child.

The problem is that the nanny state behaving like this doesn't exactly put patients at ease when they sit reading all this just before seeing a doctor, especially when they are pretty nervous in the first place. Strangely there wasn't a notice about paranoia or hypochondria.

I couldn't help wondering how much all this crap costs. Money that could be spent cutting waiting lists or, in our case, just getting the local NHS Trust up to an acceptable standard as it is currently 'in crisis'.

NHS Strikers Make Me Sick!

I don't support the strike today, it's the height of irresponsibility. The sight of arrogant fat cat union barons, like Crow and Prentice, patronising us with their self obsessed bleating on TV trying to justify their actions really makes me reach for the sick bag.

But what really got me today was the sight of NHS staff walking out of their jobs punching the air and grinning like goons as they greeted the comrades on the picket lines. Funny how those in the 'caring professions' don't bat an eyelid for the patients left behind when they strike for better pay and pensions for themselves. And if not working doesn't impact on the care provided to patients let's make them redundant, there are plenty of nurses and others in the 'caring professions' claiming they can't get a job.

Having said that I know that very few people in the public sector are in line for the 'gold plated pensions' many claim them to be on. But when many are losing their jobs, and businesses are closing with predictions  that things will get worse, it seems highly selfish and destructive to be walking out.

While public sector workers and others slam city fat cats let's look at Bob Crow's pay deal as of 2009:

As of 2009, Bob Crow's basic salary at RMT was £94,747; a 12% increase from the previous year. His entire pay package with bonuses and pensions was £133,138; on top of this he claimed £9,989 in expenses and £2,376 in travel costs.[7]

From Wikipedia

Abusing The Elderly

Today's rumpus about elderly people being mistreated by carers comes as no surprise. To call it a human rights issue, as the Equality and Human Right Commission has today is to dehumanise it. It makes it sound like a bureaucratic thing when it is actually much, much worse than that. It is a problem that is much more common than most people imagine and is a symptom of a serious flaw in our society.

I've blogged previously here and elsewhere about my family experiences with the NHS and how my mother-in-law was left housebound because of abuse in a hospital, so I won't go into it all again, just click on the link if you want to read more. But today's report is very scary indeed. The Telegraph covers it here.

My parents-in-law need a high level of care. Both are knocking on 90 and are frail and not in brilliant health, my mother-in-law can't walk more than a few paces and then with a zimmer frame. They have carers who come in morning and evening supposedly to prepare her for bed and to get her up. But they turn up at all hours and are often brusque and unhelpful. One was actually caught emptying her commode into the kitchen sink. Similarly they have hot lunches delivered but can often seem like late breakfast or early dinner and the quality can vary incredibly. They are often talked to and treated like cretins.

Thankfully, after much chasing of their local social services department they are going into a sheltered scheme that provides extra support. But my wife and her sister have had to spend day upon day chasing up social workers who seem to be permanently in meetings or away on training courses or just don't understand the system. It took a formal complaint to get action. Thankfully my in-laws have two intelligent and capable daughters fighting for them, God help those who aren't so lucky.

Our position is not so good. For the first time we have wondered today about our old age. There is just the two of us. No daughters to fight our corner if we end up struggling eventually. And people claim we are in a progressive and enlightened age. Or, maybe this is a consequence of years of progressive and enlightened policies.

The NHS-Abusing Us All

It's been good today to see the mess that is the NHS being criticised, as it should be. I'm sick of the appalling waffle people come out with whenever the NHS is mentioned.

The staff in the NHS are only interested in their own positions in my experience. Yes, that's a sweeping generalisation, as is the bullshit about nurses being 'angels' and all NHS staff being such 'caring people'. If we only had one nationalised supermarket, and it was as incompetent and wasteful as the NHS we would have a revolution on our hands. But as soon as the NHS is mentioned the brainwashed just drool about how marvellous it is. So, here is a list of the disasters that I can name off the top of my head within our glorious system of nationalised healthcare:

My mother-in-law went in fit and healthy, apart from having norovirus. She was so badly treated in hospital that she broke her hip and has been unable to walk since. That was in 2007.

A friend of mine lost his aged aunt after she was effectively starved to death in hospital.

A neighbour was left in a wheelchair in a 'broom cupboard' for ten hours when he was taken into hospital. He died a week later.

When my wife visited her mother she showed me a photograph of a toilet. It was so filthy I thought it was on the council estate where her parents live. It was actually the toilet in the hospital where her mother was being (very poorly) treated.

I spent a night in hospital in 2007. When I was preparing to leave the next day I glanced under the bed. There was a pool of dried blood under it, left by a previous occupant of the bed.

When my father-in-law visited his wife in hospital he lost his cap. Four days later my wife visited and found his cap under the bed on the floor, which obviously hadn't been swept or mopped for at least four days.

A friend of mine visited his mother in hospital. When there he contracted MRSA.

Remember Harold Shipman?

Remember people being poisoned at Stepping Hill Hospital?

And before I'm accused of being a right-wing nutter read this report from The Independent.

Here is a 1998 BBC article about NHS disasters.

Then all you get from Dave is the boast about how much more the Coalition is spending on the NHS than the last lot. Populist crap! Throwing money at crap just means the crap gets more expensive. Until politicians and the populace stop bullshit drooling about the 'glorious NHS' we will continue to see it get worse and worse and worse.

Let's face it, if virtually any other industry had such an appalling record of mistreating it's customers it would have either died a natural death, or been closed down by the government years ago. And just remember the next time NHS unions are marching to 'save your NHS', they are really marching to feather their own nests.

Royal College of Nurse's in Shock Attack on Government

Well who'd have thought it, the RCN has voted against the government at their conference today?

The 'college' that represents nurses? That's the one, but really it's a trade union that masquerades as the peoples' defender of the glorious NHS. In reality it's one of the most self-obsessed, self-interested bodies in the country, interested not in patients or the NHS but in preserving the position, pay and image of it's members.

Lots of nurses do a great job but like in any walk of life there are bad ones. In the last few years every experience I or anybody I know has had with the NHS has been bad, usually because of poor nursing rather than poor doctors. My mother-in-law is housebound because of neglect by nurses in hospital to cite but one personal experience.

The RCN hides behind people's unthinking obsession that the NHS is perfect and all who work in it  are angels, perfect and selfless compared to us mere mortals. What the RCN really voted for today was an attack on the government not because of the rights and wrongs of NHS reform, but to protect their positions and salaries.

The sooner the RCN is seen as the trade union dinosaur it is by the general public, the sooner the serious debate about solutions to the shortcomings of the NHS can begin. I look forward to the day the RCN is history, just as the NUM is today.

Fat Fighters on the NHS

I know how easy it is to put on weight. You reach a certain age and you stop playing football. Then you stop playing cricket. You used to go out for a 60 mile bike ride, you now do a couple of miles to the shop or to church twice a week. You used to walk 20 miles in the Lake District on a Sunday morning, you now stroll down the canal towpath to the pub for lunch. You used top walk/bus/cycle to work,now you drive.

I don't care who you are as you get a little older, and the pace of your life slows slightly, you put on the pounds. Then you get worried about your health so you give up smoking. Bang! On go more pounds. You can't win.

But then we realise that excess weight puts pressure on various parts of your body and to be honest, you know you don't feel particularly healthy any more. Your knees ache in the mornings, you may have dodgy ankles and so it goes on. Well at least that's how it went for me.

Then you realise you have to act. It's time to accept that this isn't an inevitable consequence of ageing, you have to make some choices, some tough decisions. Your waist hasn't ballooned because of age, gravity or anything else. It ballooned because you are putting too many calories in and burning too few off. You need to think about what to do to help yourself. A couple of G&Ts in the evening to relax after work? Stop it. Takeaways two or three nights a week so you can relax without shopping, cooking and washing piles of pots, especially after a hard day at work? Cut them out. Park a little further away from the office and walk a little more. Like a fried breakfast on a Sunday? Then grill rather than fry.

I'm sounding like my mum now but I'm sure you get my drift. Deep down we know when we need to lose weight, how to lose weight and, most importantly, why we need to lose weight. We need to take control and responsibility for our lives. But no, nanny state should be doing it for us. Or should it?

There are people campaigning for weight loss surgery to be splashed out for on the NHS to save money on diabetes treatment, diabetes often being a consequence of being porky. But why do people allow themselves to get to 20, 25 stone or more? I'm tired of seeing seriously obese people on TV wailing about how tough a hand they've been dealt while detailing how they had 5 fried eggs 10 rashers of bacon, 5 sausages, 3 fried slices and a litre of coke for breakfast, a Big Mac with fries and a coke for elevenses, a 12" pizza with a litre of coke for lunch and so on. I think it might be gluttony rather than life dealing you a bum hand that got you to that weight actually.

The state paying for something means you and me. It's our taxes, the government actually has no money. It robs us or it borrows, hence the mess we are in now. Neither do I agree with NHS money being wasted on 'treatment' for people to give up smoking. Both are lifestyle choices and the NHS wasn't formed for that.

If people want gastric bands, if they want to go on some ridiculously expensive stop smoking course then pay for it. Why should the people on low wages, who look after themselves and pay taxes, pay for the irresponsible to overcome their weakness? And I speak as one who gave up smoking four years ago and am desperately trying to lose a least two stone. Yet again it's the irresponsible and feckless expecting the responsible to bail them out.

The NHS, the Elderly and Blue Badges

Two issues have hit the news this week; how badly treated the elderly are in the NHS, and the abuse of blue badges for disabled people. Both anger me and that anger comes from personal experience.

Around five years ago my mother-in-law was taken into hospital suffering frm the norovirus. When I visited I was struck by the ovepowering smell of rotten cabbage in the ward and the corridors. I was also struck by the dress of the staff, I couldn't differentiate between porters, nurses and other staff, they all wore the same type of outfits, pretty scruffy in my opinion.

After she had been in a few days she fell. They x-rayed her and checked her out, just bruising apparently, in itself pretty bad for a woman in her eighties but these things happen.

But when we visited we found out that she had fallen because she had previously rung the bell for assistance to the loo but nobody came, despite ringing for many minutes. She had a 'mishap' in the bed. For this she got such a fierce telling off when staff finally appeared that she was terrified of it happening again. The next day the same thing happened. Rather than risk a bollocking from the nurses she tried to get to the loo herself and fell.

A few days after she had fallen I visited her and thought she was on her way out. She was in obvious pain, kept drifting off and had lost a huge amount of weight. The next day the doctor took my wife into a side room, obviously prompting fear of what news he was about to break. The news was that four days after her fall, and after much complaining by my wife that her mother was seriously ill and nothing was being done, they had loooked at her x-rays again. She had spent those four days with a broken hip that they had missed when they checked her x-rays first time.

They operated the next day but she can now no longer walk other than a few faltering steps. The only time she can leave the house is when my wife visits and puts her in a wheelchair to take her out. This is where big retail parks are a boon, my wife can park her car, put her mum back in the wheelchair and take her around the shops. Sometimes we take her mum and dad for a meal or a bit of an outing to the nearby park.

Around the same time a friend of mine was visiting an elderly relative in hospital. She was so ill that she couldn't pick up her knife and fork. After meals they took away her untouched food and wrote in her notes that she had refused food. She died and my friend, concerened at the poor treatment she had received, tried to get to see her notes. But they had been lost. They were treated in different hospitals, many miles apart.

When my mother-in-law is taken out car parks are used that have disabled bays. Thankfully many do not require the blue disabled badge, which she doesn't have. But we have become ever more aware of the shambles that is the current blue badge scheme. Not only are people obtaining them fraudulently but they are given out to people, who may be registered disabled, but really do not need a blue badge.

I know somebody who has a neck problem. I have no doubt it is uncomfortable but I didn't even know of it until I saw her parking in a disabled bay. She has an excellent job, so can afford to pay in a car park, and certainly has no mobility problem that means she can't walk any distance. Indeed I wonder whether her neck problem, severe enough to be registered disabled, could so restrict mobility that she is actually a danger on the road.

It seems to me that the system is currently so lax that a blue badge is almost a right if people have a disability, whether it is needed or not, and all disabilities do not warrant a blue badge. They are abused by people who get them merely so that they can avoid parking fees or so that they can park on yellow lines and in more convenient parking bays.

It has been proposed in London that only wheelchair users be issued with blue badges. And why not? Next time you see somebody parking on yellow lines outside the shopping centre, and there is no evident disability, just follow them for a while. It's extremely galling when they spend an hour trotting in and out of shops, up and down stairs but claim to be unable to park in the car park because they can't walk from the car to the shops. That was my experience with the friend I mentioned above.

It's about time we faced a few home truths and I hope that this government does something to address the obvious failings within the NHS and the blue badge system. We really must accept the truth and stop the politically correct delusion that all is rosy in the NHS garden.

The NHS-Let's Cut the Crap!

I get tired of people drooling over anybody associated with the NHS. Referring to nurses as 'angels' is puke inducing and should stop. Yes, there are many great doctors and nurses in the NHS, inevitably as it is a state controlled near monopoly, but there are also a lot of idiots and skivers, as you find in any walk of life.

My beloved recently blogged about the appalling treatment her mother continues to receive at the hands of the health service. They turned a pretty lively older lady into a housebound shell of what she was before they got their hands on her. You can read it at Rosie's Forum.

Last week I heard a self obsessed bag on the radio informing the presenter that she needed a holiday "probably more than most people because I work in the NHS" she said. Oh really? Of course the rest of us laze around all day picking our noses don't we?

When I spent a night in hospital about three years back it was so grim it prompted me to stop smoking to minimise the chances of having to go in again. In the morning I found a great pool of clotted blood under the bed from a previous occupant. It took me three hours to summon somebody for a glass of water, then when I needed the loo it was an hour before I could get somebody to help me get there.

Recently somebody I know was suffering terribly from depression. She is manic depressive, euphemistically called 'bi-polar disorder' these days, doesn't sound quite as much like a form of madness I suppose. Well we eventually persuaded her to see her GP who claimed to have a special interest in depression. She had a chat and he sent her away with a telephone number to ring if she got any worse. She did, and she rang the number. It was an Age Concern day centre! Useless.

Returning from one of her many visits to see her mother in Wythenshawe Hospital, Manchester, my beloved showed me a photo she had taken on her phone. It was a particularly filthy and unhygienic lavatory with 'these bogs are filthy' daubed on the wall in felt tip. They weren't public toilets on the local housing estate, they were the toilets in the hospital.

Today I read about a complete bastard called Edward Ruddick, a nurse found guilty of stamping on a dementia sufferer. Thankfully he's in chokey now, but for only 6 months.

I always used to warn people that countries with 'democratic' in their name were usually anything but. Similarly anybody with 'care', 'carer' or 'caring' in the name of their job title, or their employer's name, needs keeping a very close eye on.

Fat Fighters on the NHS

Last week I had an exchange of banter with my old mate Steve Allison. He believed in the abolition of the seatbelt law, but advocated the charging of costs to resulting accident victims if they ended up in hospital. I disagreed with making them pay for treatment and we agreed to disagree.

Steve has now been elected to UKIP's National Executive Committee. I'm sure some much needed commonsense will make a difference. But I can't help wondering what happens if, as is highly likely, the experience drives him to some kind of mental breakdown. As it's self inflicted would he be happy to pay for treatment I wonder? Only kidding, congratulations Steve and good luck.

There are various areas where I completely agree with the principle of not providing free treatment on the NHS. One such area was highlighted in the media this week, fat people. I'm no skinny beanpole by any stretch of the imagination, but I paid good money on great food and wine to get the size I am, not obese but definitely over weight. If I now decide I need to lose weight I will lose the weight, as I gained the weight, by my own effort and not expect you, the taxpayer, to foot the bill. Fatties should get a grip and find some willpower, the NHS wasn't founded to pander to your weakness but to help people in genuine medical need.

I am, even as an ex smoker, sick of the way that smokers continue to be oppressed and bullied. However, why the hell should the NHS spend money on 'smoking cessation services' as they call them? If somebody wants to give up smoking then use your willpower and stop, as you will if you really want to. I don't see why our taxes should be squandered on people too weak to do what I presume they must want to do if they contact their local 'NHS cessation service'. Wimps!

Then there is your 'gender realignment' treatment. Of course they use these euphemisms to mask what is really involved. If Arthur one day wakes up, and decides he wants to be Martha instead, then fine, that's his/her prerogative. But don't expect to have your widget lopped off out of my taxes, go private, or privates! And before anybody, usually with a vested interest, whines about not having treatment leading to psychiatric problems that cost the NHS much needed resources, that argument doesn't stand up to scrutiny considering the years and years of physical and mental treatment of transexuals as they change sex.

Any cosmetic treatment should be only available privately and not on the NHS. Of the two other issues that concern me specifically, abortion as a contraception and the very existence of the NHS itself, I will be gassing off about both in the coming days and weeks.

Wasting NHS Resources

When seemingly sane people talk about the NHS they so often lose all commonsense. It's a bit like mega successful businessmen who buy a football club, all their business acumen seems to go out of the window and they screw it up.

Here is a commonsense article from a journalist, Jamie Whyte, about GPs missing the point of people wasting their time. Or rather missing the commonsense approach to deterring people from wasting their time:

I like most of the doctors I know. They are earthy and unsqueamish, about minds as well as bodies. Few, however, know much about economics. This normally does not matter. But doctors occasionally stray off piste, get on to health policy issues and make fools of themselves. Yesterday’s letters page of The Times contained a vivid example.

Seventeen health professionals wrote lamenting that about 20 per cent of visits to GPs are for “common disturbances to normal good health, such as coughs and colds”. This costs the NHS about £2 billion a year without making any difference to people’s health, since they could just as effectively treat themselves. According to the medics, “The NHS has become the victim of a demand-led culture.”

Then, having got almost all the way to the answer, they miss it. Reading their letter is like watching your one-year-old with a square peg in hand and the square hole directly in view, trying to stuff it into the round hole. The square peg in the medics’ hand is the word “demand”, and the square hole is the fact that the price of visiting a GP is zero.

Perhaps the most familiar law of economics is that demand increases as price decreases, be it demand for apples, foreign holidays, doctors’ visits or anything else of value. The reason people visit GPs so frivolously is that it costs nothing besides the lost time. The obvious solution to the problem is to charge a fee. £10 should be enough to deter people with sniffles. People with something potentially more threatening will be happy to pay this.

But the medics miss this trick. Instead they fall back on the hoary old distinction between real needs and mere wants, which they combine with the popular modern absurdity that people should be educated into acting against their own interests. Specifically, they call on politicians to “enable GPs and practice nurses to give people the confidence to use the NHS at the point of need, not demand; educate people to manage minor ailments . . .”

If they think this is a good method for rationing GP visits, perhaps they will like this idea for rationing food. Nationalise supermarkets, set the price of all food to zero, then eliminate the problem of wasteful overconsumption by educating people that they should take only the food they need rather than what they want.

The proposal is obviously absurd. No such education could possibly have the desired effect; no one could sensibly specify which food is really needed as opposed to merely wanted; and, even if they could, why should people be allowed to eat only what they need? All the same goes for visiting a GP.

I can already hear the bleeding heart liberals raging about how the bodies of the poor will be piling up in the streets if those callous bastards brought in a £10 charge to see a GP. Bullshit, it's the price of a packet of fags and a pint of bitter for God's sake.

Sign Of The Times

If you don't read it I can recommend it. The Week is a great read that updates you on the weeks news from across the media spectrum, giving you news summaries from the Telegraph to the Grauniad.

One particularly typical New Labour cock-up highlighted this week was the GP's surgery in Preston docked/fined £350 because it hadn't received any complaints. Yes, hadn't received any, that's right.

One of the New Labour government's targets is for GPs to show how they deal with complaints. This GP had none, so lost out by missing the 'dealing with complaints' target set by the state.

An NHS spokesman said they were only obeying orders. Actually, according to The Week, the spokesman said they had to follow guidelines. But how long until that is the excuse given by some bureaucrat as the police state tightens its grip?

When you hear about these kinds of things it illustrates why the Libertarian Party health policy is so refreshing. I think our health is far too important to be controlled, and abused, by politicians and the state and that sorry tale proves the point.

NHS Truth

It's interesting to see some mild criticism of the NHS starting to appear, at long last too.

Here is the Telegraph's coverage of the recent report criticising standards of care.

I am instinctively opposed to state control because that means politicians being in control. I equally abhor the way there has been a metaphorical defensive wall erected around the NHS. Dare criticise, let alone advocate private healthcare, and in many quarters you are tantamount to a Holocaust denier or paedophile. Let's have the debate, but don't expect the Tories to be robust, they are just as bad as Labour or the Lib Dems in being scared to do what they really believe.

Take these three examples from my limited experience of the NHS. I have detailed elsewhere on this blog how my mother-in-law was so badly 'cared for' in hospital that she broke her hip while in there and they left it untreated for a week. She is now housebound.

A friend of mine was concerned at the treatment an elderly relative was receiving. Amongst other things she couldn't feed herself, so the staff just left plates of food, removed them untouched and entered 'Refusing Food' on her notes. She died in hospital. When he wanted to instigate a formal complaint her notes disappeared.

My father-in-law, on a hospital visit, lost his cap. Several days later he dropped something, bent down to pick it up and there was his cap, under the bed which obviously hadn't been cleaned for days. That was only two years ago when efforts had supposedly been made to sort out hospital infections.

I'm not saying that under a private sytem everything would be perfect, although I do believe it would be a huge improvement, what I do say is let's stop the Soviet style propoganda about the NHS and start being realistic.