Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Priorities and the NHS

What do the majority of British people need more?

The cost of subsidising Scotland (with its free elderly care and university places), stealth speed cameras, growing legions of council officials doing mindless work on stupid EU legislation ...or more CT and MRI scanners, and operators?

The wondrous amount of (mostly English) cash poured down the NHS drain over the past 10 years has resulted in many GPs on £200k+ PA, almost no "proper" evening and weekend cover, and hospitals that are top heavy with witless administrators, busily firing highly qualified nurses, and offering them employment back as lowly health care assistants, the NHS equivalent of those cheap CSOs being used bulk out the plod.

Yet fast growing medical issues such the remarkable rise in allergies and asthma in recent years remain almost entirely a mystery, and no one seems much closer to isolating and treating the specific causes of most common types of cancer.

Most cancer treatments available are still based around flushing the hapless and terrified patient with some variant of a ghastly toxin akin to Jeyes Fluid, where US drugs outfits charge £30k per course of treatment. Which begs the crucial question, is a proper understanding of how to prevent cancer actually in the financial interest of a large slice of an "industry" that thrives on people at their most vulnerable and desperate, and willing to pay anything ..?

The biggest medical (diagnostic) advance in recent times involves the unravelling of genetics, which opens up as yet unimagined cans of worms that must surely result in all forms of health and life insurance becoming the responsibility of the state (yes this is still TMP, you have not accidentally found your way to the Social Workers' Party website), and no longer in the hands of what is now essentially a cartel of "posh bookmakers". We chose the word "cartel" in the light of that recorded message that you now get when calling a car insurer that tells you about possible collusion with competitors over any information provided.

What a shame the UK leads the world in surveillance technology instead of diagnostic medical instrumentation - and don't forget the CT scanner was yet another UK invention that was developed overseas. The real value to the community attributable to speed cameras seems to be spun in various directions, but the benefits of wider availability of medical diagnostics are blatantly obvious.

And do we do need more (any?) community diversity and tree care officers?

The TMP thinks that there are probably better uses for OUR money.

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