I hope people do but after years in ‘the system’ people get worn down and ill and unable to muster the
strength to live their own lives let alone fight for change. The system has hijacked change and puts spin on
new policies – Equality and Diversity and improving workplace behaviour but the real problems remain.
The system is sick in government and in the NHS – where are the smart, strong people who can start
the revolution for change ?

E.g. Lack of vitamins/minerals coursers over eating, leading to over weigh, cancer, heart disease, diabetes etc Malnutrition= weight loss, scurvy, rackets, berry-berry, heart failure etc, all terrible and preventable. Chloride/bleach used by the Nazis as a chemical weapon, in water is highly carcinogenic. (Poor children dipped in chloride pools every week at school by law) 30% of the population should get cancer before there 60. Hitler and the Nazis first banded Smoking! If you can make the SHEEP give up smoking you can get them to do anything. (Holocaust) Smoking is still allowed in the Houses of Parliament; NO nutrient supplements when in hospital no matter how ill you are. (Lose your appetite you DIE! ‘CODE X’) did you know under the new pay deal its now illegal for MD’s GP’s to tell you that your vitamin deficient! (‘CODE X’) Irradiated food in the shops now, Estrogen in plastics, Poison in washing up liquid (rinse well), Mercury in fillings, Fluoride in tooth paste, Aspartame in every drink, but, All nothing to that, we have YET not seen! Will Tamiflu dock in you? Masons, big on child abuse and those that let the CODE ‘X’ loose. Big money in Cancer! You’ll get Chemotherapy not vitamin “B” They’ll cut of your toe’s’ but no vitamin “C”. We’ve been SETUP! (Buy Fresh, Buy Local, or buy supplements!) Check out you-tube before having the pig vaccine? “FIGHT BACK” we are NOT SHEEP! Lets do what we can, get it STOPPED. Please HELP! ‘ WAKE UP!’ remember the poor Jewish people went into DENIAL WWII. If this law comes into being, the UK become one BIG EXTERMINATION CAMP and no Allies will come rescue us. SPEAK OUT! FIGHT BACK!! If not for yourselves, then on behalf of the “THE YOUNG WEAK AND VULNERABLE.” ‘Do What You Can!’ Together we can beat this. Unite! One thing. Swine flu And Bird flu, Lung Scurvy They Bring, Top Up Your Body With Vitamin C!
Our own Government just ordered the Four Big Supermarkets to IMPORT more FOREIGN FOOD from THOUSANDS of MILES away, SUBSIDIZED by the TAX PAYER!!= Carrots, runner beans, fruit, tea and coffee ODD! All bound for our hospital.
Lets hope its not made RADIOACTIVE as it passers through the ports.
(Might need a Geiger counter)

Just because there are many faults in a larege complex system doesn’t mean it’s completely ‘failing’ – it isn’t. It works most of the time. Of course there are exceptions – cockups (administrative or medical) and inefficiencies – and anyone identifying them is quiote right to draw attention to them.

The difficulty with the NHS and any other similar social system is that you can’t test you’re ideas in a lab as you can with specific treatments and medicines. There’s no ‘Test NHS System’ where you can run trials for a few years to see how it goes. we experiment with proposed changes to the NHS directly ON the NHS, and it can take years to figure out whether we got it right, or to identify problems.

A case in point: Antibiotics were a great discovery, but it took some time to recognise that some bugs could evolve to become resitant – superbugs. At the same time we went through a period of privatising and outsourcing services and making financial efficiencies that changed the way and the extent to which some support services were carried out – i.e. cleaning. The result – the increase in the superbugs in hospitals. Of course it isn’t looked at in this way – there’s always political gain to be made for someone elses attempts to change systems.

Another case: It’s amazing that the one profession that should know better is only just cottoning on to the fact that sleep deprivation causes poor performance, depression, poor attention to detail and consequently, mistakes. But junior hospital doctors have to put in the most stupid hours – almost Victorian in their working conditions. Hours are now being limited. The outcome? Plenty of people are up in arms, jumping on yet other bandwagons, complaining that there will now be a shortage and “patients will die!” as a result.

So, by all means criticise the NHS when it gets it wrong. But for god’s sake don’t go off on a tabloid headlined tantrum every time an issue arises. The politicians that are right to attack the NHS for its faults are equally right to defend its overall benefit – that’s not hypocritcial, it’s being rational, evaluating what’s wrong with a generally good system with a view to making it better.

Let’s look at some of Hannan’s comments.

“… the most striking thing is you are sent to the back of the queue…” – Well, yes. Does he think he has the right to queue jump some old lady with a damaged hip? Well, maybe he wouldn’t want that. And of course you’re not sent to the back of the queue – you’re trreated based on immediate need. That’s what the triage system is for.

“…you’re told October of next year…” – Depends on the complaint. Note the 2004 figures flashed up? How about more recent figures. It quotes BBC 2009. I wonder if this was a selective sample of figures; did the BBC source also quote 2008 figures, but they weren’t appropriate to Hannan’s purpose? Maybe I’m being disingenuous to such a nice guy.

“…you’re not able to suplement your state healthcare treatment…” – Well, that’s not a simple issue. To queue jump based on means to pay at an NHS hospital using NHS resources would of course be unfair. How about having suplementary private health staff on hand so you can be carted off to a private wing? Good luck in getting private health insurance to pay for a system like that. So, currently you’re NHS or private – though you can mix to some extent. This is a political issue – nothing to do with how the NHS itself works.

“…a friend…A&E…friday night…asked for pain killers…” – Is that the whole sory? When did he ask for the pain killiers? My guess is that A&E would not prescribe painkillers until they had carried out an examination and determined what would be safe? We need more info before this anecdotal story is believed on face value. And did the NHS staff become “agressive” at the request? Well, maybe if they were over worked on night shift dealing with Friday night lunatics and then demanding twit of the year wants to throw his cash around – what do you expect. What if I now said, “I’d also be interested to know how his friend ended up with a broken ankle on a Friday night with all the other fighting drunks,” would it be equally egregious of me to leave that query hanging there. Of course it would. It’s easy to point score with anecdotes and without all the facts.

And the “…Friday night…” issue – this is a political and cultural problem. Yes, NHS A&E’s all over Britain are filled on a Friday night with damaged drunken idiots causing delays and using valuable resources – I’ve been there with my sick child and sick mother, several times. But that isn’t the fault of the NHS.

And the interviewer’s comment – “I can’t imagine what Americans will do…when they have to wait…” – You don’t need to imagine. Just ask the ones that have to wait until they have sold their house to raise the funds because the health insurance they’ve paid into for years has turned down treatment based on targets aimed at avoiding treatment. Or aks those that don’t have and can’t get health insurance.

And if Palin wants to look at the result of “death panels” she need look no further that the health insurance panels that determine if treatment will be paid for.

What about the figures for survival from prostrate cancel – 100% – Nonsense! That will apply to those who have had treatment – i.e. those that can get or have health cover, and even then only when the insurance company agrees to pay. Is this comparing like for like? I doubt it.

“…I could tell you horror stories about old people left starving in wards…” – OK, so fix that. But who is he kidding. There is no more horror than the many US citizens that have died because they can’t get ANY treatment, let alone slow or late treatment.

And money isn’t the issue for the US. Pupulation of US is about 5 times UK. UK NHS = £100 billion, say $200 billion x 5 = $1 trillion. That’s not on top of the $2.4 trillion the US currently spends on health insurance, but suplants some of it – and of course ALL US citizens then get reasonable to great healthcare, which isn’t the case now. Difficult to compare properly, I know, but the ball park figures don’t show up NHS costs in in a bad light. Add to that the propensity for the US to throw money into wars and banking, and I really don’t see what their problem is with a public system. Well, that’s not true; I do see. The debate in the US has nothing to do with the efficacy on a public healthcare system, good or bad. It’s all about a fear of socialism and the potential loss of profit made by health insurance and big pharma.

Hannan, “…most of those 1.4 millon people [in the NHS] are administrators…” – Who the hell does he think run private health insurance companies? Why are US private healthcare costs rocketing so much that less and less people can afford or get cover? If you are out of work in the UK because of illness, you still get healthcare. In the US, you’re screwed. Of course in the US all the hospitals and insurance companies have that other wonderful administrative cost to contend with – lawyers.

the deception is so blatant.