The Sunday Ramble: they are among us

This week Walsall Healthcare NHS trust was fined £120,000 for delays in A & E and long waiting times. When we are sick, we expect to be seen fairly quickly and although 88% were seen within 4 hours, that still means some people waiting over 4 hours.

Manor Hospital

It’s been a while since I needed A & E at the Manor hospital, but I still have to go to outpatients.  Healthcare has improved enormously since I was young, but I think a 4 hour wait is too long. Maybe the assessment period could be looked at, I think they still have a triage system where patients are assessed and then seen depending on how serious the problem is. The other thing that would help is if the walk in centre was near the hospital or part of the hospital instead of in that pedestrianized precinct by the market. Waldoc used to be near A&E, that was a better idea. It seems Cameron wants doctors open 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, that would relieve some pressure on A&E departments, but just because the lights are on, it doesn’t mean anyone is at home…

Ebola

Ebola was in the news this week too. It has only a 10% survival rate in Africa, but I think in this country the survival rate would be higher. In some places they are using isolation to stem the spread of the disease and in others experimenting successfully with an antiviral drug and saving lives. Necessity is the mother of invention, so they say…

Taxes

Cameron has plans to cut income tax for all. The personal allowance will go up to 12,500 and the threshold for higher rate of income tax will be raised. This is to give people the incentive to work. Like people need more incentive. Those million pound bonuses the bankers got for selling PPI gave them a incentive to bend the truth. The real reason for the increase in personal allowances is that the tax credits for working families is costing a huge amount of money. The increase in the minimum wage and increases in personal allowances has given people a little more money and cut the cost of tax credits. It’s not really fixed the problem though. Giving more to the rich won’t give them an incentive to work harder either. We need to encourage them to invest and innovate.

Investing

We really need to change the national mind-set from short term thinking to long term thinking. Less shorting and day trading on the stock market in favour of long term investing for growth. We need to invest in scientific research, but that too is a long term investment with no guarantees. Hospitals need to train more nurses, rather the short terms solution of bringing more in from overseas and using agency nurses. We need to innovate in hospitals too. When I was in, I sometimes needed a nurse, to maybe hook me up to a drip. Often I needed something a carer could do without a degree in nursing. Highly qualified nurses shouldn’t really be changing beds.

UKIP

UKIP won a by-election in Clacton this week, taking the seat from the Tories. I understand the appeal of UKIP, they appeal to the hang ‘em and flog ‘em brigade. They aren’t the party of intellectuals are they? They want to get out of Europe, become isolationist and be more right wing than the Tories. They appeal to the mob, people who shout a lot without considering the issues in a well thought out way. They thrive on fear, it’s Europe’s fault, it’s immigration, it’s benefit claimants… It’s not our fault the world is in a mess, it’s someone else’s fault and all we have to do is pull up the draw bridge around this island and tell them all to go to hell. Forget all that we are all part of humanity crap, there is no need for foreign aid, no need to get involved, no need for empathy or humanity.

Psychopaths

On the subject of empathy; Raymond Morris, the Cannock Chase child murderer died this week, from leukaemia, after 45 years in prison. I remember those children going missing between 1965 and 1969, everyone seems to be a suspect. He had no empathy for those children, psychopaths don’t have empathy. It’s hard to imagine how the mind of the psychopath works. Their lack of humanity and empathy is often seen as strength. Ten years after Morris was convicted the country elected a government run by Thatcher the Milk Snatcher to run the country. We have to be careful about who we admire and what we find acceptable. We have to judge people not only on their actions, but their words. There are some evil people in the world. There are some nasty people in the world. It’s not the quiet guy living down the road that keeps himself to himself that you have to fear. It’s not the people who look different, who speak different languages or come from different cultures. It is the ones, who show no empathy to others, the ones who think Morris should have been hanged or worse. They too have no empathy, no humanity. Beware of people who advocate killing and torture;  you could be next. Beware the psychopaths and sociopaths, they are among us!

The weather

The weather is always a topic of interest and the Daily Express is predicting a big freeze. Fortunately they aren’t known the the accuracy of their weather forecasting or their news reporting for that matter. It was a bit foggy here this morning, but it seems to be clearing now. We often get Darlo fog around here in November, it’s like ordinary fog, but thicker…

I think the Vintage Fair is on again at the Manor House today and so I might go to that this afternoon. I still have a cough and the remains of the flu, but my temperature is down. Watch out for me today, I’ll be the one with the camera!

What do you think? Please share your thoughts in the comments box. You can also follow me on Twitter.

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