Second, the kids are well. Driving my wife mad, but well. Yesterday, she was tired, and they, sensing weakness, were full of energy. So she took them to Go Bananas. Which they loved. Wednesday is normally my paper work day, but I had to go in and help out due to illness at work (others, not mine). Which meant that I could not do the things with the kids that I would normally do to tire them out, such as take them for a walk to buy the Morning Star (while they get M&M's).
Anyway, time to talk about why I am making this post. As some of you know, I am active on Yahoo Answers. I started to post there as I saw some outright lies, as well as half truths being told by members and supporters of the BNP. Well one of the other things I noted, was the debate on healthcare in the USA. I saw some terrible things being said about healthcare in the UK, and of course, working in the NHS, I could not let such things go without being challenged.
Well, now, there are a few posters who are regurgitating the same facts. And to be fair, some are right, but loads are blatant distortions. So this post is dedicated to pointing out the truth with these statements.
Question a doctor and lose your child - This article in the Times is one on child protection. In the vast majority of cases, parents know better than doctors when it comes to their children. I am a parent after all and we in the health professions respect that. But there are cases there parents do not know. And in cases, where a child is at risk of harm or abuse, then we as healthcare workers have to act in the best interests of the child. The many cases where such actions help children is not reported in the news, but the very few stories where healthcare workers get it wrong, or where it makes good headlines do.
'Doctors told me it was against the rules to save my premature baby' - this article (in a paper known to have supported Hitler in the past) refers to a baby born at a gestation of 21 weeks and five days. The youngest child to have survived was born at 21 weeks and six days, that being a very rare occurence. Yes, there are guidelines by the UK that state that resuscitation should not be carried out on babies born before 22 weeks but the thing that makes it even more interesting, is that these posts made by Americans make no mention that in the USA, babies born before 23 weeks are considered non-viable!
Daughter claims father wrongly placed on controversial NHS end of life scheme - This refers to a claim, not a fact and the Liverpool Care Pathway which it refers to is not controversial really. Yes, like with all things, there are people who disagree with it, but then there are those who think that the earth is flat. Is it controversial to say it is round, or that the sun is a ball of hydrogen within which nuclear fusion is taking place? Some would say such statements are completely wrong!
NHS is paying millions to gag whistleblowers - I am not going to claim that some authorities do the best they can to hide things, but the NHS as a whole encourages people to speak up in order to help patient care. Those from abroad forget that, or never bothered to listen when told otherwise. Or never knew about it and did not find out more.
Patients forced to live in agony after NHS refuses to pay for painkilling injections - an interesting headline. But if you look at the article, "A spokesman for NICE said its guidance did not recommend that injections were stopped for all patients, but only for those who had been in pain for less than a year, where the cause was not known." Something that our American cousins seem to miss when they quote this on Yahoo! Answers.
People in the UK face longer waits for non-emergency surgery and struggle to see GPs out-of-hours compared with other western countries, a survey says - again an interesting article, because in the comparisons, the US fails big time. But the BBC link while it reports some of the findings in the Commonwealth Fund article, does not mention those that US posters fail to realise! These of course refer to medical error rates and those who skip healthcare due to costs. Click on the link above if you want more on that story!
Anyway, time for that joke...
In Norfolk, they are thinking of decreasing the VAT to 11%.
At least then they can work it out on their fingers.