July 16th - NHS problems & the elephant in the room
As I've worked on finding out just what is going wrong in our world I seem to be continually coming across evidence that unregulated consumer-driven industrial capitalism will continually seek new avenues for investment to help growth and to make bigger profits taking precedence over the welfare of the population and over the need to protect our environment.
Only last week we saw Royal Mail being lined up for privatisation and this week we have the continuing saga of shortcomings in the NHS which feels to me very much like an attempt to end the nation's love affair with the NHS by drip, drip, drip feeding negative stories. Of course, with a health service providing for the entire population there will be shortcomings which need to be addressed. That must always have been the case. So why have all the stories of poor care and high un-necessary deaths been hitting the headlines just now? My guess is that the way is being paved for privatisation.It has not yet been mentioned as a remedy but it is surely the 'elephant in the room' and will, I'm sure, rear its ugly head soon.
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The aim, plainly, is to do two things: (i) to create a mood of fear and suspicion among the public concerning the NHS; (ii) to engineer a treatment and outcomes crisis that will become intolerable towards the end of the year.
ReplyDeleteAt that point a corporate 'benefactor' will appear on a white charger and offer various 'rescue' services in the most charitable and self-abnegating terms imaginable: corporate health-care can be *good*, you see! (And ever-so affordable!)
And when this happens, the population will *cheer* -- and the world of big business will finally have kicked the door off its hinges...
at some point healthcare professionals have to admit that.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea whether standard mortality is a fair tool to assess performance and I'm sure it's possible for trusts to manipulate the data they provide for assessments. However, unacceptable standards of care are tolerated too frequently.
one example, for 75 year old patients the average mortality in western countries from severe sepsis ( blood poisoning as was - in fact overwhelming bacterial infection) is about 40%. In the last large survey in 2003 in the UK the mortality for 75 year-olds and above was 67%. Practice has changed in the last ten years but I would think (as Walter would attest) we still care badly for older people.
It's certainly not going to get any better if we destroy the NHS.
These people are low and inhuman. Any government which takes a decision to favour the tobacco industry over the health needs of it's population is despicable.