I hardly ever get phone calls at 8 am. The morning I'd planned as a lie-in, naturally, I get a phone call at 8 am. Well, I caught up on sleep anyway, and I have two new projects so it was worth the interruption.
Out in the real world, it seems the NHS is considering more home-based care rather than shipping everyone into hospital where they can be humiliated, degraded and infected at leisure. They'll need to boot a few GP's into action first - the ones who believe people only get sick within office hours. I suspect many GPs will be happy to get back to the old days where the third class of sick people were actually treated. The ones who are too sick to go to the surgery but not sick enough to go to hospital.
It's a good thing and a bad thing. Good, because it takes the pressure off hospitals and means only the really seriously ill end up in there. It means that, rather than risking MRSA, Clostridium difficile (and a host of other nasties you lot haven't heard about) just so you can be treated at the NHS's convenience rather than yours, you'll be staying at home and the nurse will call in to check on you and treat you. So that's the good part.
The bad part is that little Andy Burnham's eyes will light up at the prospect of an army of smoke-snoopers, drink counters and salt and fat inspectors able to check the contents of your cupboards on the pretext of making you a cup of tea. I'm sure the NHS will say 'Oh we'd never agree to do that' but the fact is, all the lifestyle dictators are doctors. All these demands that we live as directed come from the British Medical Association.
If this plan goes ahead, the secret snooping will soon come to light. Not all doctors are lifestyle dictators and some of them will be outraged at being told to check for ashtrays, empty bottles and ready meals when visiting their patients. It'll leak to the papers and be downplayed as 'a series of isolated incidents'. Hundreds and hundreds of isolated incidents.
It won't stop the government trying, whoever is in power at the time. Lack of foresight is one of the main failings of our current politicians.
If the politicians and the lifestyle dictators can be kept out of this, it would be a good thing.
8 comments:
Off Topic LI (but is it ever off topic?)
http://www.wigantoday.net/wigannews/Dropped-cigarette-butt-costs-teen.6038305.jp
The article is bad enough - but read the comments. I didn't know there were so many bigots around me.
wv: hangs (really)
The comments read like the Inquisition days. All those 'smoker in the street' denouncements from those who put us there!
As I read it, he put his cigarette out on the ground and then put it in the bin. Should he have dropped it in the bin still lit? It's too late, apparently, once it hits the ground it's litter even if you pick it up at once.
If they try that with me they'll get the local MP's name and address. Not mine.
Perhaps that will get the message across.
"Victim surcharge" is another money-grubbing device. I'm surprised it didn't attract VAT.
I don't think I'll be opting for home treatment, Leg-Iron! It won't be long before doctors are required to report on the opulence of homes - for health and safety reasons and for the detection of poverty, of course.
Hopefully budget cuts will see the snoopers get the chop - at least for now.
PS: A treat for smokers.
Buy a really strong mousetrap and plant it in the cupboard where you keep the evil stuff.
LFAT - labour would more likely cut back on the treatment than on the snooping, I think.
Fausty - nice link. Makes me wonder if there are signs of a turning tide at last.
John R - I was thinking more along the lines of a flat-iron and a big spring. Behind a door marked 'fattening stuff'.
Leg-Iron - Excellent, that's real "Tom and Jerry" stuff!! Could you arrange sound effects as well? It would look so good on YouTube!!
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