Saturday
(1)Just as the NHS is the darling of the British people, it will come as no surprise that its failures are increasingly covered by the tabloids, who have found that the crisis in health provision is a concern to those who have to rely on the state through no fault of their own. High taxes and expensive private health care denies choice to the majority of the population.
One of the latest (and incredible) stories to emerge is a lack of mops in Victoria Infirmary in Glasgow:
PATIENTS spent two days in "grotty" wards - after a hospital ran out of mops.Cleaners at the Victoria Infirmary in Glasgow were left stunned after bosses told them of the shortage. And it took two working days for the hospital to replace all the mops.
A source at the closure-threatened hospital said: "We knew things were bad here but this takes the biscuit. Cleaners went to work on Wednesday and were told there were no mops and nothing could be done about it
Only scenes such as these could be caused by a state monopoly of health:
After replacement mops arrived on Thursday, a source revealed that hospital staff celebrated.The insider revealed: "People were dancing around the boxes, singing and chanting, 'We have mops.' " The source added: "No wonder our hospitals are riddled with MRSA superbugs and such like if they can't get something as simple as this right."
Only the NHS could ration health and mops!
Maybe if you bribe them with mops you'll at least get a clean ward?
Posted by The Last Toryboy at September 24, 2005 11:52 PM
It may cost us to get better here in the states but at least you can eat off the floor! - sometimes you might have to, the hospital charges extra for the plates!
Here in Myrtle Beach we get great care because tourists foo the bill!
Posted by Myrtle Beach at September 25, 2005 12:47 AM
They have just absorbed the right unto themselves to keep "non-heart-beating" (dead) patients "viable" until they get permission to dig in for surgeon-enhancing transplants.
There are so many people "in need".
And?
So?
They're the responsibility of my dying relative and my family? No. They're not. And they will not win the right to be. They will not win the right to take precedence over my family.
This transplant thing is out of control. They're colonising bodies.
They say people are "brain dead" and ask permission of distraught relatives to performe transplants for those "in need", and then they perform those transplants under general anaesthesia. Why, I wonder? Dead is dead, isn't it? Unless "declared" dead is .... um ... alive ...
Be alert because they are thinking up ways to subvert your lack of permission. Let your MP know.
Posted by Verity at September 25, 2005 03:24 AM
Join the Labour Party. You won't have any problem then.
Posted by Brian at September 25, 2005 03:57 PM
I think Brian gets the "Disturbing Post of the Week" award with that one...
Posted by The Last Toryboy at September 25, 2005 09:31 PM
Not one of the patients was able to get on the phone, call a spouse/friend/relative and get him to drop in at Tesco? What gives?
Posted by Omri at September 26, 2005 04:42 AM
They don't particularly like you using Tesco or anyone else apart from the 'in-hospital' food stores. From the moment you are admitted to an NHS hospital in the UK, even as a private patient, you get bombarded with requests to use your credit card - whether to watch TV, check email, use the telephone or for anything else. Given that it costs your nearest and dearest about £1.50 a minute to call you in hospital (more expensive that a sex chat line) I'd guess that one day's telephone calls buy a lot of mops.
On the other hand you have the cancer treatment hospitals in the UK which operates exactly how the NHS should and are certainly without compare to any other healthcare system in the world.
Posted by Julian Taylor at September 26, 2005 09:43 AM
I'm somewhat puzzled by Julian Taylor's final comment.
Haven't various international surveys clearly demonstrated that cancer outcomes in the UK are worse than in almost any other advanced western economy?
Julian, please explain!
Posted by HJHJ at September 26, 2005 10:31 AM
