for a little while longer. This morning a nurse removed the dressing exposing some fine bruises, as shown in this fetching photograph. I'm impressed with keyhole surgery, minimal damage, quick recovery and returned to bar of life in the blink of an eye. What more can a leg ask? And once again the National Health Service comes to the rescue. I didn't agree that they hired a South African firm to do the job rather than it be done in house because I see this as part of the creeping privatisation of a trusted service, however, the job's done and I'm glad about that.
Wey hey!
9 comments:
I still can't get over the fact that you're a real, live [nice-lookin'] leg, Dan.
Will you be out soon? Get better quick.
Maybe the medical system won't be totally privatised...maybe the people who did the surgery are paid by national health care?
Thank God for the NHS - at least we don't have to take out a mortgage for treatment like the Americans do.
I like the yellow background but the text isn't too clear to me - not so much the regular text as the links which are very pale.
They may not look like that to you though - see my post on colour blindness at http://hydedailyphoto.blogspot.com/2007/07/red-roofs-and-colour-blindness.html and check the link to making pages accessible.
G,
The National Health Service is one of the crowning post WWII achievements in the UK. Free health care at the point of use. Of course there are some charges, for prescriptions etc but if you are unemployed or poor then the whole thing is free. Everyone, except a those who wish to make money out of health agrees with the ideal of the NHS. However, it has suffered this last thirty years or so from budget cut backs and the interference of those who beleive profit comes first. As a result any new developments in the NHS are no longer done in house, so to speak, but are done by private firms contracted to work for the NHS. This obviously pushes up costs because these firms have to make a profit. Under the old NHS the majority of the infrastructure (staffing, buildings, supplies, storage, training, etc) was directly organised and controlled by the NHS. But Thatcher and New Labour (that bastard Blair and his cronies) believed this was ineficient because only the private sector can be efficient. As a result profit is king in the NHS and need is subordinated to this. So hospitals now compete with each other rather than cooperate and budgets are set via targets rather than need. For instance in the 1970s bed occupancy in hospital was (I think) about 80-85% whereas now it is 98% on average. Great you might think, but not so great for infection control, not so great is there is an run on beds (which can mean people being sent miles away from their families, which can mean people being treated on trollies in corridors (this last is an experience mainly suffered by the elderly who are a low priority). Not so great because hospitals are not factories and the wear and tear on the infrastructure and on staff is considerable with those levels of use. Another result is the standard of personal care has gone down because staff simply don't have the time.
Grrr.
The firm that sorted my leg is contracted by Manchester NHS to perform 14,000 hip, knee and joint operations. However, they also can reject patients who have complications such as diabetes and other compliants (a nurse friend has told me this)so the NHS has to treat such patients direct yet the firm is paid at the end of their time limited contract whether they do the 14,000 ops or not. We call it cherry picking.
On the one hand I'm glad my leg is sorted but am annoyed I had to use the private sector - even though it cost me nothing - because I believe, and I'm not the only one, that the NHS is subsidising the massive expansion the private sector that we've seen in the UK this past 25 or 30 years. And to cut a long story short I don't beleive in private medicine. Health should not be a profit making enterprise, anywhere.
So there!
xx
A,
How's that? Thanks for the observation, I've not thought before about bloggers with colour deficiencies but will keep it in mind for future changes.
DF
A,
And ditto re the NHS. A stupendous institution in my opinion.
xx
ah yes this is much more readable with better contrast.
I think my wife is coming home from hospital tomorrow now the social have been a fitted a couple of grab-rails. All I have to do is shake off the flu!
Arthroscopic surgery! Might have guessed. I went private to get my own knee sorted out. Just couldn't wait any more...what with the needing to go up and down stairs and all. We should probably exchange photos of knee holes or something.
I'm sending everyone over to read your above comment on the NHS. I'm in the states right now and thanks to Sicko everyone's looking at the nhs through those rose coloured things. I keep saying..'yeah. the nhs is great. but 'free' is a loaded word. also, it's not as efficient as it use to be. and too..there's a reason all general medical council employees get free private health care.'
Just sayin.
Be better soon.
B,
I think there's still a 'postcode' lottery in the UK where they treatment you get will depend to an extent on local priorities. For instance the recent death of Tony Wilson is an example. Manchester Primary Care Trust would not pay for the new treatments for his cancer saying the new medicines had not proved themselves cost effective, yet if he'd lived in Cheshire he would have received the treatment. In Manchester the PCT has paid for 14,000 arthroscopies etc so I'm sorted fairly efficiently and quickly. Regarding the issue of 'free' I understand that in France and Germany their free health services (organised via a national taxation scheme of some sort)are generally much freer at the point of use than the NHS. Regarding costs, before Thatcher's drive for privatisation the NHS's running costs were famously 7% per annum which is pretty good by any standards. Costs are now in double figures which is a disgrace but at least they're not the 21-25% such as in the US. Re GMC employees getting free health care, not sure what you mean. All citizens of the UK are covered by the NHS, no one is exempt. That is to say, National Insurance is compulsory and has no opt out therefore even billionaires have to pay it and are covered by the NHS even if they largely go private.
I agree about that, Dan...health should not be a private sector business.
Post a Comment