More responsibility

After putting up that last post I got to wondering how the situation arose and who ultimately is to blame. The triage nurse has operated within her defined role, and abided by the protocol provided. Technically she has done nothing wrong, but has abetted a system that sanctions inadequate care.

So who wrote the fucking protocol? Sadly I think it likely that it was done by one of our own. We have in the medical profession plenty of grovelling arse licking yes men, willing to throw their principles in the bin for self advancement and financial gain. Men cast in this mould. We all know that medicine can not be adequately practised by tick box and protocol, but some will overlook this for selfish motives.

I have used this phrase before and make no apology for using it again. The only difference between some doctors, and prostitutes, is that there are some things prostitutes will not do for money.

Responsibility

The tendency for Trusts, and the private medical sector to try and provide medical care on the cheap, by insisting that those nasty expensive doctors are really not necessary has claimed another victim.

On the one hand perhaps we should not blame the triage nurse involved, because she (he?) is a nurse, not a doctor, and diagnosing appendicitis is not something she is trained to do. 

On the other hand however, whoever she is, she has had the arrogance, or the stupidity, or both to apply for this position thinking she is up to it, and then carry on in the role with enough confidence to exclude the diagnosis of appendicitis without actually bothering to see the patient. 

If a doctor had fucked up in this manner he would have been suspended immediately and reported to the GMC. His name would be all over the headlines, his career permanently blighted. But the nurse has not been identified and all that the company responsible have done is to have “revised their protocol.”

I think that non medical staff who take on medical roles should be personally identified when they screw up, just like a doctor would. Then perhaps, knowing that the job comes with responsibilities, they would think twice before taking on a job they are not qualified to do.

Because as long as employers try and get away with providing sub standard care on the cheap, and non medical staff are willing to step up and play at being doctors, we are going to see more and more of these episodes of incompetent negligence.

Injustice

There is a general sentiment internationally that those individuals who are imprisoned still have certain rights. One of these is the right to decent healthcare. If the state sees fit to imprison you, it has an obligation to ensure you are kept healthy as far as is possible. In states without universal healthcare this can lead to the situation where prisoners can get better healthcare than the law abiding poor and one recent case illustrates one of the more bizarre instances of this.

And if a convicted prisoner should be entitled to be medically looked after then this should apply at least equally to those held on remand, who have only been charged with, and not yet convicted of, any offence.

Dengue fever is a common tropical disease with a relatively low mortality. There is no specific treatment but general supportive measures can reduce the mortality from 5% to less than 1%.

If a prisoner is ill with this condition therefore, and is denied medical care his chance of dying is increased 5 fold. This is exactly what has happened to Aslam Masih, who was arrested a year ago and died recently of dengue, compounded by neglect, before being given the chance to defend himself in court. 

And what horrendous crime had this man been charged with? I will give you a clue. He was in prison in that haven of free speech, Pakistan. Yes, another man dead, while charged with blasphemy.

Finitro Forte Scam

I wrote recently about scam advertising appearing on blogs and gave a few examples. The latest is a “miracle cure” for arthritis called Finitro Forte. Any discerning doctor who reads the claims for this substance will see at once that they are grossly misleading. Far too good to be true, but we all know that patients in pain will try anything, and can be swindled out of considerable sums of money by the unscrupulous.

However the Advertising Standards Authority have jumped on this remarkably quickly and ordered the company to stop making these unjustified claims. The company did not respond to the ASAs approaches and the ads are still appearing, at least on sites originating outside the UK.

Any patient who approaches their doctor for advice on this product should be advised of the ASA ruling, and the fact that the promotion is a scam.

Rich irony

Paragraph 7 of the good practice guide states about patients “You must not unfairly discriminate against them by allowing your personal views to affect adversely your professional relationship with them or the treatment you provide or arrange. This includes your views about a patient's age, colour, culture, disability, ethnic or national origin, gender, lifestyle, marital or parental status, race, religion or beliefs, sex, sexual orientation, or social or economic status”

I am sure that health workers in the USA will have a similar ethical guideline, which these people are observing in spite of the circumstances.

Mystery Object

No correct guesses I am afraid. Probably a bit obscure. It is a Jarcho Pressometer, a rather elaborate device used for filling the uterus with contrast medium in the early days of hysterosalpingography. Nowadays they just use a syringe.

Spot the difference

Is it just me or is there a resemblance between these two.

Niall Dickson

Tomas de Torquemada

Mystery object

Any guesses what this is, from about 1950.

Justice

Those of you who were as appalled as I was about the case of 13 yr old Savana Redding, linked to on my last post will be glad to know that the US supreme court found in her favour, describing what was done as "outrageous conduct"

War on drugs

Human beings have been taking mind altering substances throughout history and in all cultures. That drug taking can be harmful to health is undoubtedly true, but this is not only the case for illegal substances but many legal ones too. How societies react to their citizens taking drugs however bears no logical or proportional relationship to the level of risk, either to the individuals or society.

Many countries have an approach to drug use which is not determined by rational assessments of risk and harm. The UK is one such, where the attitude of government towards drugs is entirely moralistic. The so called “war on drugs” pursued by successive governments has clearly failed to attain it’s ends and the only response is for government to get more and more repressive and draconian. And yet despite all the resources thrown at the problem and the successes of enforcement authorities the problems continue.

When experts in the field try to question this approach and inject a little sense into this area they find themselves slapped down and ignored, as is illustrated by the reactions to statements made by David Nutt and Sir Ian Gilmore.

Different, more liberal and accommodating approaches, in some countries, such as Holland and Switzerland have however delivered huge benefits, such as;

A change in public perception such that drug taking loses it’s cool image and instead becomes rather sad, leading to significant reductions in the numbers of new addicts.

A significant reduction in crime of all types. In the UK about half of all crime is committed by drug users.

Significant improvements in the health of drug users.

British politicians reject these approaches as somehow not suitable for the UK. How lame is that. 

The war on drugs is now employing the concept of “zero tolerance” a chilling phrase if ever there was one. For a good example of where that approach can lead have a read of this appalling case from the States. 

Isn’t it time we got a little more pragmatic?

Cause and effect

My last two posts have raised a question in my mind, a question that has come to me often before. Are religious people stupider than the rest of us? Well the question has occurred to others too and someone has actually done a study on it. And the results do actually show that there is a correlation between lower intelligence and religiosity, and the fundamentalists have an even lower intelligence than the moderately religious. Now who would have thought?

Now I know that correlation does not necessarily equate to causation. Apart from anything else which would be cause and which effect? Is it that naturally thick bastards, having poor reasoning power, are more likely to believe illogical nonsense, or is it that cultivating unreasonable notions rots your brain and makes you thick?

Recidivist

The DT today has an article about a GP, Dr Richard Scott of Bethesda Medical Practice, being in front of the GMC for evangelising, and proselytising his fundy christian beliefs to a vulnerable depressed patient. As I read it I had a feeling of deja vu. In fact this is the same GP who has been up in front of the beak before, for exactly the same offence, less than six months ago. 

Reading the two stories it is clear they relate to two different instances so Dr Scott has deliberately carried on abusing his position to try and impose his religion on his patients despite having been told in no uncertain terms by the GMC to lay off. 

I expect Dr Scott will try and defend himself in part by trying to assume the role of religious victim and martyr but his conduct is a crystal clear, and repeated breach of good practice guide para 33.

Time to put on the black cap I think.

Letter to George

In response to a couple of my recent posts about Khalid Saeed, the anonymous commenter who I have named George made some statements that I still have difficulty getting my head around. For sheer head in the sand denialism coupled with intolerance he can’t be beaten. 

Let’s start with his comment “I don't think Pakistan or anywhere else would give a toss whether he 'believes' or not”. This is so contrary to all the evidence that I can only assume George’s blindness to be wilful and absolute. In Pakistan apostasy is a capital offence and a survey last year found that 75% of it’s citizens believe that apostates should be killed. 75% George that do give a toss. And it is not just Pakistan. In Saudi Arabia apostasy ranks up there with rape, murder and drug trafficking and is punishable by death, as it is also in Iran. I think if a state or individual feels strongly enough about an issue to murder for it they probably do “give a toss”. Don’t you agree George?

Secondly there is George’s statement “still want punishment for the disrespect caused to societies, and I agree with that because the rights of the majority is paramount” There is something I keep trying, without success, to get across to George, as he has been here before. He talks about the “rights of the majority” but does not know what it means. George, in the UK there is no legal “right” to respect, there is no legal “right” not to be offended. There are however hard legal rights to freedom of speech.

I suspect what angers George so much is that his ardent desire for me to be punished for exercising my right to freedom of thought and speech is not about to be fulfilled. That I am getting away with expressing my contempt of his, and every other religion. You would have thought that if the big man up there was so disapproving he could sort me out himself. After all he must know where I live. But he doesn’t, because he doesn’t exist.

Thousands of people every day, like Khalid Saeed, come round to this realisation and George’s response is that they should be killed for it. But George, when you and the other millions of various faiths, prostrate yourselves and grovel on your knees in the dust in supposed piety and supplication, don't you realise? don’t you see? There is no one there.

Learning by mistakes

Well surprise surprise.
Do you suppose this will make Lansley think again, about making the same mistake, again, by letting the private sector in, not just to cream off the top, but to take the whole fucking bottle.
I wouldn't count on it.

Quote

There can be no surgeon who is not also a physician, where the physician is not also a surgeon he is an idol that is nothing but a painted monkey.

Paracelsus 1493-1541

No comment.

Ancient wisdom?

One of the strategies used by CAM practitioners in peddling their useless wares to gullible morons is their appeal to the wisdom of the ancients. The idea that, because something has been around a long time that gives it legitimacy. The implication is that modern medicine, or allopathy as they call it, is some sort of upstart that popped up fully formed last week. 

But even with their reverence of old knowledge they cherry pick. Modern medicine itself has evolved, in fits and starts over thousands of years to be where it is today and some of the greatest advances were made a long time ago.

This man’s full name was Aureolus Philippus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, but he called himself Paracelsus. He is considered the father of the modern medical method, based on observation, examination and diagnosis. And almost 500 years ago he made a statement that to this day is one of the fundamental principles of pharmacotherapy; “Poison is in everything, and no thing is without poison. The dosage makes it either a poison or a remedy.” He was describing the phenomenon of dose response. The concept that toxic substances can be diluted to a level at which they are harmless, while non toxic substances can be harmful if you take enough.

Wilful ignorance of this basic principle is the hallmark of two of the worst forms of CAM lunacy, homeopathy and anti vaxers, both of whom cling to the idea that substances, whether duck intestines or mercury, can retain or increase their potency even when diluted out of existence. Perhaps they should be told that Paracelcus predates Haahnemann by some 300 years.

Yet other quackery promotes the related view that non toxic and essential substances can be beneficial if taken in ultra large doses. Billions of pounds are spent on pointless and unnecessary vitamin supplements, despite the fact that some vitamins are decidedly toxic in excess. Hyperbaric oxygen is another fad ignoring the fact that 200KPa of O2 in a sealed chamber is a distinctly unhealthy environment, even if you don’t generate a spark from your nylon knickers.

Even pure water can kill if taken to excess as the organisers of this ill informed radio competition found out. And even if you don’t die of drinking too much of it, in the words of Dara O’Briain, “You can always fuck’n drown”

Last fun with languages

I have had a little fun with foreign languages lately so to be fair I wondered if there were a few amusing place names in English. A brief search has turned up whole web sites devoted entirely to this so I am just going to highlight a few that I liked the most:

Balls Green and Clap Hill, both in Kent

Bell End, near Bromsgrove

Brown Willey in Cornwall

Cockplay, Northumberland

Fanny Barks, Co Durham

Feltham Close, Hants, and the list goes on and on.

But my favourite has to be this one from Orkney. One day I am going to go there and have my photograph taken just to the right of this sign.

Double standards

As was pointed out in a recent post the Pakistani legal system displays that it is remarkably good at pursuing those it perceives as having committed the awful crime of blasphemy, with nearly a thousand people having been charged with this over the years.

So how come this same legal system is unable to get it’s act together when it comes to those who bomb and maim indiscriminately?

Hi George

Oooooooooooooh, my very own little troll, (comments)  I will name him George and I will etc etc

More fun with languages

Since we have mentioned Sweden we can have a bit more fun on the lines of my previous posts on languages.

This for example is a packet of Swedish biscuits.

And here is some Swedish toilet paper, which leaves no doubt as to what it is for.

Finally follow this link for a picture of a parturient using entonox analgesia, except that the Swedish name for Nitrous Oxide is.......

Ignorance

My last post has drawn an anonymous critical comment suggesting that Khalid Saeed is simply trying to work the system to avoid deportation, and that he would not be in any danger if he returned home to Pakistan.

I think this is such an ignorant and ill informed comment that I have to refute it. 

Mr Saeed is an ex moslem, or apostate as islam calls them, and an atheist who has expressed criticisms of islam on his blog. This is considered blasphemy to many moslems. I assume that anonymous lives in a democratic state and enjoys freedom of speech, and may be unaware that in Pakistan both apostasy and blasphemy are criminal offences that can attract the death penalty.

Although no-one has yet been executed for either crime, those accused, even if acquitted, are often nonetheless killed either in prison or on their release. Anonymous’ statement “I don't think Pakistan or anywhere else would give a toss whether he 'believes' or not,” has to be seen as utter shite.

Anonymous also states “And why do you think all those born into 'any' religion are staunch believers and practitioners on the same level of dedication?”  Firstly I don’t understand the question. Secondly, where have I said any such thing? I made no comment on the post at all.

The bottom line is that Sweden is about to deport a man back to Pakistan who could face judicial execution, or murder at the hands of fanatics, for the crimes of apostasy and blasphemy, neither of which are offences in Sweden. 

Reproduced from another blog

A CALL FOR HELP FROM AN EX-MUSLIM

Hi! My name is Khalid Saeed, ex-muslim, atheist, humanist and at present living/hiding in Sweden. I was born and grown up in Pakistan, and left islam after the analysis and thought process of many years. Because of my critics of islam both on my blog and in discussions were threatened to life not only me but also my family by the government on the base of existing sharia laws (blasphemy laws) in the country and by the extremists. After hiding for some time in Pakistan, in 2009 I escaped to Sweden and applied for asylum there. After the process of more than 2 years now Swedish Immigration Board want to send me back to Pakistan, which is certain death. Only this year so far there are around 40 known blasphemy cases/incidents resulting in prosecutions, killings, arrests, and torture. But the actual numbers of blasphemy and apostasy cases are much higher as such cases are considered as the worst crime and mostly are not reported. Different international organizations in their reports confirm the situation. Apostates are the worst victims in many muslim countries like Pakistan as they are not getting support from so many. During the past years hundred thousands muslims from different muslim countries have immigrated to Sweden, and already today they have strong influence on Swedish politics, laws and even jury members in immigration courts. Last time my case was rejected because two of the jury members were from Social Democrats, a party which is very much influenced by the Swedish Muslim Brotherhood. One jury member from another party was in favor of my case. This is a one example of how immigration decisions here in Sweden are taken place. I have been having support from among other Ex-Muslim Council of UK, Swedish Ex-Muslims, and The Humanist Association UK. Two journalists from Denmark(Hans Erling Jensen) and Sweden(Nima Dervish) and Monica Johansson from fralsningsarmen.se have been supporting my case. But nothing has helped and now I and my family (my wife and three children) risk prosecution and a certain torture and death in Pakistan. Unluckily even “my” lawyer did not make any effort to work on my case, as he was hired by the immigration board and I was not allowed to change him. Now I don’t find any other way than asking you for help. I know that Canada have a Refugee Sponsorship Program (http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/refugees/sponsor/index.asp, http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/refugees/index.asp) and at the present that seems only the hope for me. Please help me in sponsoring or finding a sponsorship. I am desperate and need YOUR HELP! I send you further details about my situation and case and references after getting your reply. I am desperately awaiting a response from you. PLEASE HELP! Khalid Saeed My blog: http://noislam2007.blogspot.com/2011_07_01_archive.html

Comeback

I recently posted on the hazards of discharging firearms up into the air. As this film clip shows however that is not the only way that a bullet can make an unwelcome return.

Take that

Most hospital consultants will have had a similar experience to this at some time in their career. You are called to see a patient in the evening and find someone horribly sick. You spend all night doing all you can, calling on all your experience, knowledge and skill in a desperate attempt to keep them from death. As dawn breaks the patient turns a corner and starts to improve. Having kept the relatives informed through the exhausting night you then go and give them the good news. And what do they say? “Oh thank god.” The fact that if you had left it to god and gone home to bed the outcome would have been different does not occur to them. 

But just once in a while this illogical attitude gets an appropriate response from the chief fairy. Like the staunch catholic guy who got stuck in a lift. Now getting stuck in a lift is no big deal really. You are almost certainly going to be rescued so his praying to god for salvation is a bit over the top. Inevitably human agencies doing their job got him out. So what does he do? He goes to church to thank god for saving him. What happened subsequently is almost (but not quite) enough to make me believe that there really is a deity up there. One with a wicked and sick sense of humour. 

Fun with languages

I took the piss out of the Welsh language a couple of posts ago, but I suppose you could do that with any language. Take German for example, especially some of their place names, as illustrated here.

I know at least one of these to be true as I have personally visited this place.

Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición

The General Medical Council was established in 1858. It is a registered charity, registration with it is mandatory for any doctor who wishes to work, and it is answerable to no-one. For many years the many unsatisfactory aspects of the GMC were justified to doctors by assertions that the existence of the GMC constituted “self regulation” of the profession, and that this was preferable to state regulation. This self regulation is also the reason why it is financed by the doctors themselves through the annual retention fee.

What few seem to have noticed however is that this concept of self regulation has been eroded by stealth. Over the years more and more positions within the GMC  have been filled by non medical individuals. On at least one occasion an individual was appointed known to have a pathological animosity towards the medical profession, and one doctor in particular. Only half of the 24 members of the council itself are medically qualified. Although the Chair of the Council is a doctor, the real power resides with the Chief Executive, Mr Niall Dickson, who has been a teacher, a medical journalist, and CE of a Quango. Not a doctor then.

So now we have only the illusion of self regulation, and a GMC seemingly intent on making life as difficult as possible for doctors. Not content with tyrannising us at work they are now even suggesting they should regulate our personal lives as well, as is detailed here. 

True to form, the fact that these suggestions would constitute breaches of articles 8, 9 and 10 of the Human Rights Act is being ignored but the GMC have always had this attitude that they are somehow above the law. However in this case they would also be in breach of their own policy as laid out below; (found on another bloggers site, thanks to RP)

"In January 1999 the Standards Committee of the GMC met to consider issues involving the behaviour of doctors who comment in the media. It was their view that the GMC should not attempt to curtail doctors' rights to express their personal opinions. Doctors, like anyone else commenting in the media, are subject to the same constraints imposed by media regulatory bodies, and the libel laws. Furthermore, the committee considered that the professionals reputation depends principally on the standards of care and conduct provided by doctors to their patients, and not on personal opinions as put forward in published letters or articles. Whilst you may disagree with the comments Dr Y has made, we cannot take action against a doctor who is expressing a personal opinion".

So not only are they malicious, tyrannical and vindictive, they are illogical, inconsistent  and incompetent with it. Why do we put up with them?

Ow!

The media have over the last few years been full of stories about the perceived deterioration in standards of nursing care in the UK, particularly in care homes for the elderly. I don't however recall reading anything as horrific as this.

It is rather reminiscent of the British officer in a Japanese POW camp who is told by a guard that his comrade, Nobby, has been taken away for interrogation. He tells the guard "Ha! Nobby won't talk, he'll fight you tooth and nail"

The guard replies, "No no, Nobby no longer got teeth or nails."

Knowledge and Certainty

One area I have never touched on here is climate change.  I don’t intend to get embroiled in the subject itself, but there is one statement used again and again that irritates me. “The science is settled”. What an unspeakably arrogant phrase. I think anyone who believes that any scientific matter can ever be “settled” should reflect on this quote by Bertrand Russel.

“The triumphs of science are due to the substitution of observation and inference for authority. Every attempt to revive authority in intellectual matters is a retrograde step. And it is part of the scientific attitude that the pronouncements of science do not claim to be certain, but only to be the most probable on present evidence. One of the greatest benefits that science confers upon those who understand its spirit is that it enables them to live without the delusive support of subjective certainty.”

Honesty and deception

The main criticism of the NHS reforms is undoubtedly the strong potential for the NHS to be handed over to the private sector bit by bit, or at least the potentially lucrative bits of it. There is I think an open mindedness to the concept of abolishing PCTs, which many see as far too controlling, and giving more power to practices through commissioning, but the thought that segments of the service will so blatantly be sold off to Cameron’s mates so that they can skim off the top drives most of us to teeth grinding apoplexy.

You have probably noticed that Trusts are already starting to act as if they were private companies. For example, I will bet that your Trust has a mission statement. A completely meaningless and empty phrase that appears on Trust literature to give the impression that the Trust is a dynamic, forward thinking, hypersuperlative organisation, when in fact at best the care is no better than it has ever been, and at worst, well Stafford springs to mind. Perhaps they should focus less on telling us how wonderful they are, and more on showing us.

Something else that Trusts are indulging in is the active soliciting of feedback from the “clients”, as patients are now referred to. It is not enough that the staff are overwhelmed by useless tick box forms, now the patients are asked to fill them in as well, by prying into the “patient experience”. How was it for you?

The results of these will always be positive, because despite the attempts of management to fuck things up the medical and nursing staff usually manage to deliver the goods in spite of the increasingly difficult circumstances. For which the management will then take the credit.

But the results of these surveys will always be useless. The bottom line is that the British don’t like to complain. When was the last time you had a poor meal in a restaurant, with indifferent service, and not only failed to complain but left a tip for the surly ape who threw the food at you.

This unwillingness to complain was brought home to me once by a patient. I had been seeing him for some time, and none of my endeavours gave him any benefit. I wondered if a change of approach might help and referred him to one of these multidisciplinary teams that everyone thinks are the way forward. Some weeks later I received a letter from the team leader telling me how well the patient had responded to their approach, and that he had informed them that he was so improved that they had been able to discharge him.

I was somewhat surprised therefore when he subsequently reappeared in my clinic with the same problem, claiming to be no better. I showed him the letter. His exact words were; “Well, they were nice people, and they worked hard, so you tell them what they want to hear don’t you? But actually it was a complete waste of time. Utter crap.”

Eine kugel kam geflogen

Like me you have probably been following events in Libya. Something that has been seen commonly on the news reports has been that of jubilant rebels firing large numbers of bullets up into the sky. Although one can understand this expression of excitement, have you ever wondered what happens to these bullets. Well what goes up must come down.

Because of the American domination of all things to do with firearms all measurements to do with ballistics are in old units. No SI here. Velocities are in feet per second, calibres are in inches and weights, of bullets and powder, are measured believe it or not in grains, rather like drugs in the UK until the advent of metric units. 1 Grain is 64.8mg.

A high velocity bullet, such as that fired from an AK47 leaves the muzzle at 2300fps. For comparison a low velocity round such as a .38  pistol has a muzzle velocity of 900fps, still highly lethal.

A falling bullet attains a terminal velocity of 300fps, while 150fps is sufficient to penetrate the skull, so a falling bullet is not something you would want to hit you on the head. Apparently gunshot wounds have a surprisingly low mortality of only 5%, but falling bullets are far more likely to hit you on the head and have a staggering mortality of 32%.

In 1991 the end of the first gulf war was celebrated in much the same way as we are now seeing in Libya, and falling bullets killed 20 people.

What a pathetically stupid way to die.

Freedom of speech

I posted the quote by Lembit Opic in my last post partly because of my ongoing preoccupation with freedom of speech. He actually made the statement referring to a specific story recently in the news. The story is another illustration of the common, but erroneous, view that some people have that they have a right not to be offended.

The offence was caused when Roger Lewis, a Welsh author wrote a piece in which he quoted Kingsley Amis, who had made derogatory remarks about the Welsh language. The remarks were read by Jonathan Edwards, a Welsh MP, who reacted in a manner that can only be described as hysterically excessive, reporting Mr Lewis to the Home Secretary, the Press Complaints Commission, and the Police.

Fortunately most Welsh have seen Mr Edwards for the pompous arrogant oversensitive little twat that he is and seem to be unimpressed with his outburst. 

So what was said that drove Mr Edwards to such self indulgent spluttering. The offending phrase was that Welsh was, "an appalling and moribund monkey language, which hasn't had a new noun since the Middle Ages" The first half of the statement is pure opinion, but the point about nouns is testable and I have done a little brief research. From what I have found it looks as if Kingsley Amis had a point. I simply looked up the Welsh equivalents for a few modern words, and I am going to illustrate with just three examples, though I found more.

English                  Welsh

Garage                 Garag

Ambulance           Ambiwlans

Computer             Compiwter

Hmmmmmm...... That’s not a language. That’s Dyslexia that is.

Quote

"With a free press, not everything that is written is going to be pleasant.... people have the right to hold objectionable views."

Lembit Opic

Another Knight

Fellow blogger Dr Grumble has not posted now for a couple of months, but in  his last post he highlighted something that we have all noticed. “.....employer wants more healthcare assistants to do nurses jobs, more nurses to do doctors jobs and more GPs doing consultant jobs.“ It might have been thought that this was something of a cynical viewpoint but as this article in the Telegraph reveals, that is exactly and precisely what they do want. 

Lord Crisp of course has never had any medical or nursing training, he has been an NHS manager of one type or another all his life. He seems to have learned nothing in all that time. What he advocates is on a par with the provision of medical services in China by the barefoot doctors. It is nothing more than saving money by providing a sub standard service. 

You can bet your life that if Lord Crisp or his family need medical attention they will have the most reputable consultant available, while he expects the rest of us to put up with a nurse practitioner.

Lord Crisp inevitably has a knighthood, despite being in no small part responsible for the state of the NHS today. Another suit full of bugger all.