NHS problems

15 February

The lack of care for patients with mental illness is in the news again and the government has pledged another £1 billion in extra funding. I wonder where this has come from, or if it is really new money. In most places at the local level there has been very little evidence the extra funding at other times when it was supposed to have been given over. I remember a visiting a friend once when they were in an inpatient in a mental ward, and I wasn’t impressed at all.

No staff were about after they let is in and it was two hours before we saw any of them. The patients were left to their own devices all that time and without any sort of over watch and anything could have happened. Some of them just sat on their bed while I few were mixing together in a separate room. There seemed to be little structure to their day other than the normal day to day pattern of normal NHS life. Our friend was lonely and bored silly and I couldn’t see how being in there was helping them in any way. From what I have seen in various places in the media, things haven’t improved all that much, if anything at all.

Mental health provision, or lack thereof, is not the only area of the NHS that is failing, the whole system seems to be on the brink of collapse. The report in various papers of how many muppets in government have some financial interest in private medical looks pretty suspicious to me. What makes it worse is when we hear of members of their families have benefited from a NHS contract being awarded to companies they have an interested in. Why these people have to be so silly by getting involved in this way, it leaves them open to suspicious thoughts and comments.

Mental health services, A&E, maternity services, geriatric services, oncology, they all need more cash to work properly; is there any areas of health provision that isn’t in trouble of some sort. And then we have the ongoing junior doctors dispute adding to it all. Then I read on-line that the imposed deal is really down to the local NHS trusts to implement of not, so why all the fuss then. And just how much did it all has cost?

Jan is up to the Hussy for 4pm for an appointment over her stoma and having it redone. So now we continue our ongoing journey over our health. At some point this month I need to get blood test done for my next diabetic clinic. As well as that, I still have an appointment for a memory test, already been put back a month. And so it continues on and on … … …

We were up at 7.30 again this morning and finally saw the site agent around 8.45 and since them nothing has happened. We are both fed-up with this now with dragging on like this. The sooner it’s over and done with the better for us now. We can then get everything sorted out the way we want it to be. All we need now is for them to get the job done. It will be good to have a decent home cooked dinner too!

Today’s photo … moon trees

Today’s funny …

A farmer was busy milking one of his cows. He was just starting to get a good rhythm going when a small bug flew into the barn and started circling his head. Suddenly, the bug flew into the cow's ear. The farmer didn't think much about it, until the bug squirted out into his milk pail. It went in one ear and out the udder.