So 2009 draws to close, punctuated by snowfalls and freezing weather that, for me, illustrate the malaise, in most of the machinery of the state. In these annals I tend to highlight the shortcomings of the NHS and Healthcare. But, the sickness in Society (which according to Maggie doesn't exist) is more widespread. It penetrates Central and Local Government and Governance. Certainly, MP's have filled thier pockets with taxpayers gold, as have many Civil Servants including Doctors. But more; the widespread hubris of all dominates. They feel they are both being effective and successful when in truth they are believing their own rhetoric.
The NHS is the focus of my anger, but it is deeper; I am angry with Doctors who abdicate their role as the healer, to become the druggist. They fail to shun the rubbish claims of the most powerfull industrial conglomerate in the World, rivalling that of the Oil Cartels; the Pharmaceutical giants. Whilst the small and universally shunned groups scream foul, they largely sit in their ivory towers, dispensing what some truly believe to be the best for their patients, undertake procedures that both threaten and take lives in the name of best practise, when it patently isn't. At Consultant level they cherrypick patients with the cash to pay for the nanny and the Volvo for their fragrant spouses. They take the gold of the Taxpayer for part time work, to give them an inflated pension and care for them if they ever fall ill themselves. It has been this way for sixty years and despite some effort by Government to change the culture, it remains that way today. Well shame on them I say. Running with the hare and the hounds is unaccepable and needs to be kurbed. They should fulfill their roles for the NHS or get out and ply their trade in Private practise, I do not believe they can be in both camps.
It is sadly deeper even than that. Medicine has been corrupted as to be unrecognisable with that of thirty years ago. Invented illnesses predominate just so Big Pharma can peddle a pointless, expensive drug to the gullible or worse, greedy physician who sees a new cohort to treat for which he/she can extract more cash from an already hugely expensive system. Test regimes are devised to check for obviously frightening illnesses, such as cancer or heart disease but, there has been no discernable impact on mortality for those actually diagnosed (as opposed to those tested) and an alarming number of false positives have been found and treated to no good purpose. In fact, a significant number of scientists are now of the view that most screening of the population, has been counter productive and expensive.
In other areas, we also find the apparatus of the State failing in the provision of that which they exist to provide. The Police seem to universally fail to help in situations where they are the only agency capable of so doing. Leaving people who are vulnerable, to fend for themselves against the feral minority of Society that hounds them to death or to an action that is then unlawfull in it's desperation. Utility organisations that provide infrastructure at what seems to be a high price to the user, singularly failing to give us what we pay for and who are then found guilty of significant fraud against their own customers. The list is in fact endless including the great 'sell off' at bargain basement prices, of the state machinery we all worked so hard to pay for, including now all the Nuclear Power Stations to EDF, part owned by the French Government.
Where is Government in all of this ? Waiting in the wings with it's hand outstretched for the quite large crumbs that fall therein in the form of jobs, expenses, sponsorship of the ludicrous talking shops they are always arranging, in fact anything at all that gets the enormous cost of Privatisation out of the Chancellors ledgers, even if it does cost twice as much in the long term. This cynical manipulation or 'spin' of everything has rendered the citizenry impotent. There is nothing to choose between any party except a name or a younger face.
It is Government that has allowed the fat cat salaries, especially in Healthcare, to spiral out of control. There are I believe 144 separate agencies involved in NHS governance alone, and to what purpose ? They are singularly ineffectual in achieving higher standards of care or safety and seem to be a money pit to perform another tick box function that gets us nowhere. The MOD is just as disfunctional, incapable of supporting the cannon fodder they continually send to their untimely deaths in a far away country, that has never been subdued, by any who have tried in 300 years. It is time for them to go and yes I voted for Blair, because I thought he was a breath of fresh air in stale and smokey club. How wrong could I be !
Looking back I see myself as I was and as I am, burdened with debt, depression and post traumatic stress and some physical ailments that those are heir to. My life has been turned upside down and my wealth for retirement all but destroyed. I live in a constant state of anxiety as to the health and well being of my love and myself, all due to the machinery of that State failing me on the very few occasions I have asked it for help. The last of which nearly left me alone for the rest of my days. I have always paid my taxes of which there is an abundance, followed the Law and helped those I could when the chance arose.
Lack of care has killed my best friend, nearly killed my love, destroyed a friends career, almost lost an employee a leg, my sight in one eye. Yet that same State I now berate saved two of my children from certain death at birth way back in the early days of the NHS. It wasn't good the NHS then, but it was effective and CLEAN. I know not what to do to change things, some are now history and nothing can change them but surely people will see what a terrible legacy we are leaving for our successors. The gravy train has to be stopped. I with others have to commence to build the buffers. Since beginning to write these blogs I now know at least I have good company. Salutations to all; you have probably saved what's left of my life and for that I thank you.
I agree with you - we are seeing the breakdown of society, and it seems to be going unnoticed, with no one clear about what to do or what they should do.
ReplyDeleteThe NHS has deteriorated beyond all recognition, as have the services that all societies need. In their place we have fat cat bureaucrats and politicians indistinguishable and inseparable from their expense accounts.
Perhaps we are just getting old ;-)