Health care ?

Hi Larkin. Just imagine a system that's infintely better than the barbaric, elitist, inhumane care system in place in the US and that will be the NHS. Let's keep our fingers crossed it happens.

OAPs dying is a slightly different issue. Poverty, in the developed world, is no longer an accident of circumstances, it's a deliberate choice. We in Britain, just like America, have a policy of keeping people in poverty because the cost of helping them outweighs any possible return in votes. And, let's face it, human nature makes it far more appealing to harm people than to help them. If you could send people warning letters, fine them, then imprison them for being poor, poverty would end tomorrow.

In Britain the old don't die because they are denied medicines or operations. They die because they can't afford to heat their homes in winter, or have nobody to look after them.

The NHS is entirely a good thing. Anybody who tries to muddy the water by confusing it with old people dying is just fucking with your head for their own political ends.

Hi Larkin. I am afraid there is some truth in what you have heard about health care for the elderly. Although by and large doctors in my experience are keen to carry out procedures on and prescribe for elderly patients, however, what actually happens when old folk are in hospital is another matter. Over many years, I have noted the lack of actual humane CARE for the needs of the elderly in hospital. People too frail to feed themselves have food placed out of their reach, no-one to help them eat and no-one to help them to the toilet.
My own Dad, whom I have written about on here, (I have begun his memoirs under AN ORDINARY MAN) a good, kind, brave ex-serviceman, who when in his late 80s suffered from Parkinsons. He was unable to get out of bed or walk without help and rang his bell for 2 hours before someone came. The male nurse switched off the bell said he didnt have time to help him and he should do it in his pants (he was wearing a pad). My Dad said to him he had never done that in his life, but in the event he had to. He told me about it next day. That was the first time I saw my Dad cry. That was 2 years ago

Last month I collected my elderly Mother in Law from a stay in another hospital. She had heard the same thing said to a patient which upset her. But what really shocked and upset her was waiting for us to collect her when no-one had phoned us. She was in the 'departure lounge' for hours and witnessed 2 elderly ladies brought down in flimsy nighties, no-one there to help them, no food, no toilet, obviously in need of care, left to wait hours for their ambulance. This upset Mother so much she cried for days afterwards.
So there's the truth and that's your choice. Reasonable medical treatment (albeit after long waits, mix-ups, fudges and delays) or dignity in old age. Lack of either can kill. Seems you cant have both.

Linda

The thing is, Linda, I agree that those things should never happen. But it isn't the fault of the NHS. That is to say, you couldn't make life better for the elderly by scrapping the NHS and installing private health care in its place.

What we need is a better NHS (or better politicians), not an alternative to the NHS.

It's all part of the current obsession with regarding everything as a business. Universities (for example) are obliged to sell, sell, sell to get students and the funding that goes with them. Hospitals are required to support huge management structures that do no more than take money from medical staff.

Who will put an end to the sickness of 'market forces'?

Thanks so much for your comments. I believe that we do need a NHS here. I'm just so sick of the politicians and media acting like monkeys pissing on a match that lit the fire that is burning the banana tree down.
From the lazy, fat Roman senators of two thousand years ago to the lazy, fat politicians of to day...the problem of wealth and privilege remains the same. They hump devils of deceit in the shadows and proclaim their "honest" efforts to help the people in the light.
I simply needed to cut through the bullshit and ask people who already had a NHS.
Again.....thanks so much,

Larkin

Apart from yourself, getting people to care about your health is one thing, especially if you've paid into a system. I know how crippling some people living in the US have found health costs. Getting the care you've paid for though could be another matter. There's a lot of politics that plays out regionally here as well as self-interest agendas that also come into play with some people's care where insurance and legal issues may be concerned. People feel they can buy anything and anyone and this can influence diagnosis and the standard of care received in this age of greed, power, control and Big Brother - not necessarily related to budgetary issues. They do it because they can. Leveson has also shed some public light on some of what goes on up to the highest levels - no bars. Take nothing at face value.

I agree with Linda, some old people have "starved" to death in hospitals here with not even basic water given to them - an essential for life as we know it. You'd think this would be part of any basic training. You can't tick box care, it has to be administered ie: it takes human contact and nursing used to involve this.

OK Blessing and Footsie, I do agree with most of what you've said here, and with the basic principle stated by Blighters that the NHS is better than no health service. You are right about the business-isation of public services. When I (and my husband) was a Civil Servant, there was a public service ethic - we wanted to help and received a fair wage (I am counting the much criticised pension as part of that remuneration). Now, nurses have to have degrees in god knows what, but many have forgotten how to care. And Civil servants hand out more to people who have just stepped off the proverbial than they earn. No wonder they get pissed off. There are just too many people in this country for the NHS to cope with and too many who have not contributed but expect everything to be handed to them while we workers are at the back of the queue.
Larkin you have got me going on this. There is no justice and no FAIRNESS in this green and pleasant land. You dont get what you work for. And as you say, wealth and privelege get it all come what may.
And don't get me started on Education!
Linda

It's all the fault of those other people. Gingers (specially black ones), the hard of hearing, newt lovers. If they didn't get things, I would! I'm not sure how the things would be diverted from them to me, but the Daily Mail assures me they would be.

We knew something was wrong but we didn't quite know what it was. It had to do with rich people, of that much we were sure. The only way they could have become rich was by taking what was ours. If the rich were less rich, we would have more. If the rich were made poor, we would become rich ourselves. We didn't know by what mechanism this would come about but the logic seemed watertight. Irrefutable.

http://www.greatwriting.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2939&p=11215#p11215

Isn't the bible full of left-wing commie shit too? The parable of the workers in the vineyard, for instance. The buggers who arrived at the last minute got just as much as those who had worked all day. What kind of an example is that for decent little-englanders?

Under our system in the recent past....they butchered my father in a VA hospital to show interns what cancer looked like. They butchered my ex-wife in the 1980s during the massive (especially women on welfare) hysterectomy drive. She had to have three more surgeries to get scar tissue removed. They removed more than 30 pounds of tissue due to incompetent surgery.

On the other hand....a doctor and many nurses saved my life when I was diagnosed with a flesh eating disease. They even saved my leg from amputation. Another doctor performed surgery on my back years later and completely healed me. Three previous doctors told me there was,"No hope."

Competency in any system is going to vary. Many Americans are afraid of losing quality service in a National Healthcare System. Quality has always been in the hands of real health care professionals...private insurance or not.

One problem with the medical profession is that they don't like to blow the whistle on each other. Most surgeons have the best of intentions, but surgery is a manual skill. Not everybody is good at it, just as not everybody is good at carpentry or icing a cake. Exams don't help.

If a surgeon is clumsy and bad at - well, bad at surgery - his colleagues will cover up for him. Decent chap, don'tcha know, just incapable of using a knife.

Good point....so true.

"If you could send people warning letters, fine them, then imprison them for being poor, poverty would end tomorrow."

Haha -- you're insane.
Go a step further and set them to work on the plantation.

Good idea WD. If people choose to be poor we must torture them until they decide to be rich. It's the American way.

You might be interested in this article, Larkin --> http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31735.htm

http://www.ukauthors.com

I still have "Who, who, who" ringing in my ears and words that lept out at me from the link above were: "dinosaurs", "fear and lies and hate".