Birthdays

Birthdays are good for you.  Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest.  


~Larry Lorenzoni


Zorro is one year old today.

Yet more fun with statistics

Yet another study has been published presenting the bleeding obvious, and making it seem as if there is a major problem demanding immediate action. 

This time it is the dire consequences of lack of exercise, and poor diet, lifestyle factors, which are said to be responsible for x numbers and y% of deaths each year. I presume they mean premature  deaths or otherwise the implication is that if you live a healthy active lifestyle you will live forever. But what exactly do they mean by premature death. I don’t think I have ever seen a definition. Measured against what? What do they consider a reasonable age to die? At what point do they consider death to be normal and acceptable? 

And what exactly are the dire consequences of dying at, say 65, rather than 85. There is an implication that somehow this represents some sort of extra cost to society, but this is rot. Relatively few people these days die quick sudden deaths having been previously healthy, so I am sure that the last six months of most peoples’ lives are an expensive time, but this will be true whether they are 40 or 80. Nobody’s life is ever saved, by any medical or lifestyle measure, simply extended. Death is never prevented, simply deferred. 

Magaret Chan of the WHO indicates just how far out of touch she is with the statement,  “Slums need corner food stores that sell fresh produce, not just packaged junk with a cheap price and a long shelf-life.” What she does not seem to get is that shopkeepers will stock what people want to buy, that is how they make a living. The reason they often don’t stock fresh fruit & veg, and other healthy produce is that the wobbling lardbuckets that come in to their store won’t buy it. 

And if we are so increasingly unhealthy why is life expectancy so high. Our demographics are now such that we have so many elderly that the younger working population can no longer fund the pensions and healthcare bills of supporting them. As a society the cost of keeping people going until they are so enfeebled they have reverted to a neonatal type of existence is now breaking us. If people really want to make the choice to pursue a hedonistic, lazy, indulgent but short life why should we be hectoring them to do otherwise. 

So these are Zorro’s suggestions for government policy that will actually reduce pensions and health costs, restore a more supportable demographic distribution, and make people a lot more contented and happy. 

The over 65s should be entitled to the following.

     Duty free fags (The UK meaning, not the US....... Or perhaps both)

     Duty free booze

     Recreational drugs available free on prescription.

     Subsidised motorcycles (over 100bhp) and helmets banned

     Subsidised meals in McDonalds, KFC and Pizza Hut.

That is a reasonable start. Any other suggestions?

Yet more defiance

Something extraordinary and laughable happened in Jordan yesterday. A trial commenced against Kurt Westergaard and other Danish nationals for drawing and publishing the mohammed cartoons. 

As far as I am aware Mr Westergaard has never set foot in Jordan, and what he is charged with is not a crime in Denmark.

The concept that a nation can reach outside it’s own borders and attempt to prosecute a foreign national in their own country for exercising rights guaranteed to them in that country would be hilarious if it were not being taken so seriously in Jordan.

The charges include blasphemy and the humiliation of islam. Unsurprisingly none of the “defendants” have felt the urge to go to Jordan and defend themselves. Who can blame them.

OK Jordan, here are those cartoons.

Come and get me.

Honeymoon over

I have said before that I am not a very political person, and I rarely pursue a political agenda. I was glad to see the last government go because of it’s corruption and incompetence and I decided to retain an open mind when it came to the new coalition. I like to think I am unbiased and that my opinions are formulated on the basis of factual performance rather than pre-cultivated dogma.

But I have come to the conclusion that David (call me Dave) Cameron is a complete and utter knob.

Coming to this conclusion has been a step by step process, as he has ratcheted up my disapproval on various issues.

Firstly there is his determination to heavily involve the private sector in the NHS reforms despite the obvious fact that previous such policies, in the form of the PFI hospitals have been a scandalous diversion of public funds into private pockets.

Secondly there is his seeming determination to ensure that a decent school and university education once again become the exclusive preserve of the sons of the wealthy.

But the final straw is what he envisages for the House of Lords. This is an institution that should not be tolerated in a country that claims to be democratic. A house, with no limit to the numbers of members, filled by political decree with government cronies as a sinecure for retired MPs. There are apparently 792 of the buggers at the moment, and nearly half are over 75. 

And perhaps the most disgraceful component of the Lords is the automatic inclusion of 26 Anglican Bishops. Who the hell ever voted for them. And Cameron wants to increase the number of “Faith Lords” by including other religions too. 

I believe it is a strong possibility that the recent census will show that the commonest group in Britain is those of “no religion”. And yet we are going to have to put up with a Lords full of unelected faith representatives, excluding atheists of course.

The only democratically acceptable option for a second chamber is for it to be totally elected. And if the religious institutions feel they should be represented let them stand like anyone else and see how many votes they get.

But Cameron apparently is determined that the House of Lords is not turned into a secular institution. 

What a tosser.

Yeah!

Everybody wants to be a doctor

Bob Bury has written another excellent article in “Hospital Doctor”. In it he touches on something I think we have all noticed over the years, and which he describes perfectly as our nursing colleagues “unrequited desire to take up the mantle of the white coat and stethoscope.” He also makes the statement “I can’t help thinking, like the unreconstructed, arrogant, paternalistic monster of a consultant that I undoubtedly am, that it would be a lot better for the NHS, and certainly for patients, if nurses would just get on with the job of nursing.” a statement with which I identify totally.

One of the commenters to the post has said “Bob is retired. That kind of outspokenness and standing up to the nurses is never displayed by consultants in post” He don’t know me vewy well do he.

A retired friend of mine used to give his patients a first class service. If one of his patients phoned his secretary with a problem she would put a note on his desk and he would phone that patient back within 48 hours, and if the problem could not be resolved that way he would see them in his clinic within 2 weeks. Since his retirement he has been replaced. But now if a patient phones with a problem they are told they can have a phone appointment, with a nurse specialist, in six weeks time. What bloody use is that. You may as well ask the cat.

The implication here is that the nurse specialist is more knowledgeable about the subject than the GP who sent in the referral in the deluded hope that his patient would get the attention of a Consultant. If I were the GP I would be bloody insulted. 

But it’s not just nurses who want to play at being doctors. Bloody Pharmacists!  If I go into a pharmacist’s shop to buy some Paracetamol I get asked the third degree from some numptie, a mini consultation, with no privacy, from a fucking shopkeeper. And at work I am periodically told by one of these jumped up pedlars of quack remedies that I can’t prescribe drug X because it is not in the Trust fomulary, or not licensed for that indication. Let’s get this straight. As a fully registered medical practitioner I can prescribe what the hell I like, for whatever I deem fit, and this principal has been confirmed by the highest court in the land. And all I expect of the pharmacist is that he takes it off the shelf and gives it to the patient. To quote a previous president of the British Pharmaceutical Society “The interests of patients are best served when doctors prescribe, and pharmacists dispense”

And bloody physiotherapists. Every time I see one of these posing idiots poncing along the corridor with a stethoscope around his/her neck I want to strangle him with it. The meaningless jargon they come out with is one step removed from quackery and I am not alone I know in wondering what exactly they do that is of any use. Whenever I see what I think is a physio doing something useful it turns out to be an Occupational Therapist.

And as for “I’m an independent professional, don't tell me my job” midwives, I’m not even going to go there.

Commercials

Normally I loath advertising, on TV, in magazines, hoardings etc, but this is verging on a work of art.