Wealth, poverty and cheating the system
16 January
I don’t suppose we will ever really know if Russia did hack the US
election, however, France seems to be taking the idea seriously because it
taking extra measures to prevent it happening there. Either way, none of those
elections will have much of an effect on us here directly. The thought came to
me though that perhaps the ‘remainers’ might well claim the same has already
happened here with the BREXIT vote. That may well have an impact on us. Even
now the losing side is fighting a vicious rear-guard battle to stop what the
people of the UK have voted for. I shall leave you to make up your own mind on
this one, just remember where you heard this one.
We have another run over to Selly Oak to do later this month, this time
for Jan to have a CT scan done. That’s two of those and a MRI scan she’s had
done in the last 12 months. We are hoping the operation gets done more quickly
than 12 months though. We are also hoping my licence arrives back in time for
the scan to be done, then I can drive for that one. As for me and my back, I’m
still taking the same pain killers but not as often now, and then because of
hip pain, not back pain.
As if the NHS hasn’t got enough to deal with, BBC Inside Out show on at
7.30 this evening, is showing a patient selling his NHS prescriptions for cash.
The reporter paid £250 for a drug that costs £10,000 a year to issue. If the
guy is selling them, then he doesn’t really need them does he, and £1 to pinch
of brown mucky stuff, he’s not alone in this one. I’d like to bet that he is
cheating the DWP and local council as well, in which case, it’s time he was
caught and dealt with.
This is one item that has come to light, but I do wonder how many other
such cases there are. The NHS costs us billions every year, and with that kind
of money floating around there will always be those with an eye on where to
divert some of it into their own pockets. We occasionally hear about cases
where NHS employees have managed to find ways to cheat the system, sometimes
these people are in senior management positions. They know how stretched the
service and keep pushing for more savings, ‘to meet budget cuts’, but also to
make the lining of their pockets thicker. Such people should be given serious
jail-time when they are caught, not wrist-lapping jail-time.
I do like Who Do You Think You Are?
the BEEB show on family history. The last one saw was Ricky Tomlinson. He
knows Liverpool, of course he does, he was born there and still lives there.
His back ground is as a strong union man and did a two year stretch one time because
of it. As he traced his family line back he found out that due to accident he
lost two of his distant family. Their widows were then plunged into poverty and
that really angered him. Liverpool was a prosperous city in the mid to late 19th
Century, yet the rich lorded it over the people the people who were creating
that wealth, the men on docks.
My thoughts were pretty much the same as his, at least to begin with.
Then I realised that things are not so different these days, are they? Liverpool
is no different to the rest of the UK, with thousands of people being fed from
food banks, and with numbers due to rise too. Then I began to think a wee bit
more; Tomlinson is no longer living in poverty, is he? So I began to wonder
just what he was doing personally to help out those less fortunate than he and
his family is. It’s all well and good bleating about how unfair a system is,
but those bleats need to matched by deeds on the street, or they are just hot
air.
The same question can be asked of me too. What do I do to help? That’s a
hard question to reply to, isn’t it? Let’s face it, if I was listed what Jan
and I do, it look like boasting, but please rest assured that we do help as and
when we can. However, there is one we never do, and that is to give money to beggars
on the street. Some are in genuine need, a lot aren’t, but how can we tell? We
can’t. Perhaps if we want to help them, take them to a pub or chippy and buy
them a meal, don’t give them cash.
What happened to yesterday’s blog? Simple, I just didn’t feel up to it,
very tired when I got up and I remained tired for most of the day. In fact, I
was in bed just after 9 pm but didn’t settle until just on midnight, and I must
have dropped off pretty quickly too.
Today’s photo …
A dog rose.
Today’s funny …
What is green, has four legs and two trunks?
Two seasick tourists.
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