I took my wife to the local NHS hospital for an ultrasound scan of her tummy region, which helped prove that the cyst detected by an earlier Cat-Scan was benign. Apart from the never-ending struggle to get parked close enough to the main entrance to achieve a smooth journey with a wheelchair, there were no problems for either my wife, or myself. No problems, that is, from the vituperation and verbal abuse aimed at my head by a group of four women standing some three yards away from the entrance doorways.

Due to the aforementioned parking problem, I had to leave my car on ‘double-yellows’ some 200 yards away after leaving my wife inside the hospital foyer, and was walking back to join her. Immediately above this group of women was a huge sign stating that the whole hospital was ‘Smoke-Free’, and all smoking was therefore banned. My lips must have twitched involuntarily as I passed these four people, all of whom were gripping a cigarette between their lips or fingers; none of whom I have ever seen before, but that small sign of my distaste for the practice was sufficient to unleash a storm of obscenities from all four, interspersed with the regular number of coughs and splutters which accompany such habits.

Now I will freely confess to have smoked in the dim and distant past, but thankfully have kicked this filthy, dangerous and disgusting habit, and hopefully have also leached out all the poisons which have inhabited my lungs; but also am Libertarian enough to accept that if some idiot wishes to consign him- or her -self to an early and painfilled death, that is indeed their prerogative. But the idea of standing outside a place which sees more than its share of the results of smoking, in the lung cancers and other diseases of the cardio-vascular system brought on by the combinations of the tarry poisons carried by that same addiction; standing directly underneath a warning against smoking which literally could not be missed: the only conclusion I could reach for their behaviour was that they simply could not read!

The theme around the Stafford Hospital tragedy seems to lean towards ‘responsibility’ and whether  a nurse, a doctor or, indeed, a management executive, upon seeing something disturbing; such as a patient lying in their own urine or faeces, should attempt to do something about this, or pass by on the other side of the ward.

I used to work in Construction as a M&E (mechanical, electrical) consulting engineer, on the supervisory side of things; directing, checking and approving all activities related to my expertise. The first day of my time on a very large project in the City of London, our big boss said to all present, “The one thing you must do is never to walk past a dangerous situation; you must always sort it. Because if you don’t, and someone is either injured or killed, you are responsible for that injury or death. No ‘ifs’ or ‘buts’, no excuses; that is the Law!”

I was given responsibility for all aspects of work on a seven-storey building which was a bit of an orphan, in that it was to be occupied by the ultimate client, but no-one wanted to look after the various bits of it. So on my first walk around site, I just noted all the areas where equipment and work activities were not to my liking, or where the possibility existed for safety problems to occur. For example, I sent back three truckloads of ventilation ducting on the grounds that all edges were razor sharp, no de-burring had been done, and if an inexperienced operator picked a section up without gloves, his hands would be lacerated within seconds. I went through the entire site like that, making sure that the men, and sometimes women, were protected in spite of themselves.

Up on the top floor slab, I came across a team who were installing large sections of plasterboard walling which would form a ventilation shaft up through the entire building. No safety barriers existed, piles of equipment were haphazardly dumped anywhere, and no safety rules were being even paid lip service. As it was the first time I had seen this crew, I mildly pointed out the many omissions within the work area; told the crew I would be watching for improvements, but decided to let them work on. As I descended the staircase, I heard the foreman mutter, “F******* Safety Bastard,”. I reversed my course, stopped all their work on site, told the foreman that he would only be allowed to continue once all the relevant safety precautions were in place, all working and safety paperwork had been reviewed not only by myself but also the senior safety officer; all working practices would be monitored on a daily basis, and he would really have to watch the bad language!

Transfer that attitude to the Stafford Hospital, and those 1200 people would not have been even placed at risk, never mind died in their own filth.

This is shocking and belies a level of incompetence that almost defies description…

Patients have unleashed their fury at a surgeon suspected of botching 1,000 breast cancer operations. One woman, who was among scores allegedly given a needless mastectomy by Ian Paterson, said: ‘Put him in a room with all 1,000 of us and let us hack away at his body.’ Others said Mr Paterson, 54, had robbed them of their femininity. The surgeon has been suspended from his job and is being investigated by police over allegations that he convinced 450 healthy women to have operations they did not need.  He is also accused of performing partial mastectomies on a further 700 patients – which may have increased the likelihood of them developing cancer.

How could he have been SO incompetent? It is awful so many women have endured the stress of  unnecessary masectomy. Was there no system in place to check that these procedures were necessary? Do these consultants do what they want without oversight?

Given the issues that confront Northern Ireland it’s good to see that our politicians are really getting to grips with the BIG ISSUES. Yes, they are off…..to Cuba!

 A Stormont Committee is aiming to find a new way to improve efficiency in the health service — by flying a team of MLAs and an official across the Atlantic. The group will travel to the Caribbean in December on a fact-finding mission to observe Cuba’s healthcare system — at a cost of £6,000.

Originally the committee had discussed sending all 11 members, or a member from each party, but has now decided against it. Among those travelling to the four-day conference in Havana will be the chair of the Assembly’s health committee Sue Ramsey and deputy chair Jim Wells.

Yes, CUBA. It provides world class healthcare, you know that, yes. Well, all is not QUITE as some pretend.

“To be sure, there is excellent health care on Cuba — just not for ordinary Cubans. Dr. Jaime Suchlicki of the University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies explains that there is not just one system, or even two: There are three. The first is for foreigners who come to Cuba specifically for medical care. This is known as “medical tourism.” The tourists pay in hard currency, which provides oxygen to the regime. And the facilities in which they are treated are First World: clean, well supplied, state-of-the-art.

The foreigners-only facilities do a big business in what you might call vanity treatments: Botox, liposuction, and breast implants. Remember, too, that there are many separate, or segregated, facilities on Cuba. People speak of “tourism apartheid.” For example, there are separate hotels, separate beaches, separate restaurants — separate everything. As you can well imagine, this causes widespread resentment in the general population.

The second health-care system is for Cuban elites — the Party, the military, official artists and writers, and so on. In the Soviet Union, these people were called the “nomenklatura.” And their system, like the one for medical tourists, is top-notch.

Then there is the real Cuban system, the one that ordinary people must use — and it is wretched. Testimony and documentation on the subject are vast. Hospitals and clinics are crumbling. Conditions are so unsanitary, patients may be better off at home, whatever home is. If they do have to go to the hospital, they must bring their own bedsheets, soap, towels, food, light bulbs — even toilet paper.”

What can a totalitarian regime really learn —- from Cuba?

Reports The Telegraph:

All children are to be given the flu vaccination after experts said it could save up to 2,000 lives a year. The scheme, which is expected to be rolled out in 2014, will see all children aged two to 17 given the vaccination through a nasal spray. Younger children will be given the spray at their GP practice and schoolchildren will receive it at school.

My but the Nanny Staters are busy bees this weather…

Ridiculing someone as ‘fat’ or ‘obese’ could become a hate crime under an idea being floated by a group of MPs and a leading charity.

Here’s the insanity..

If we have our LOCAL politicians in charge of things, then it means things will be done better. Such is the perverse logic of the half witted devolutionist. Let’s see how the local Health Minister, Edwin Poots, is shaping up then, shall we?

The BBC has learned that all five Northern Ireland health trusts have breached A&E waiting time targets. Performances were found to be particularly poor in the Northern and Belfast trusts. End of year performance figures, seen by the BBC, highlight the continued pressure facing emergency departments. There was a total of 10,213 breaches of the 12-hour target which states patients must be seen within that period, compared to 7,386 in 2010/11

That’s around a 40% INCREASE in those poor souls waiting 12 hours or more to be seen by a doctor in an A&E department! Hurrah for Mr Poots, he has shown beyond doubt what local politicians can do when they are handed….control. Oh, and naturally there is no chance of him being sacked for this gross incompetency. Still, let’s keep moving forward, right?

Re$earchers at Oxford University say that everyone over the age of 50 should be taking statins, and that everyone over the age of 50 should be prescribed statins.

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d wonder if this was the latest attempt at population control. No-one should take statins unless they want diabetes, dementia, brain degeneration, memory loss, liver failure, nerve damage, kidney failure, muscle weakness beside many other things.

These quacks are still peddling the hoax that cholesterol and high fat diets are bad for us and lead to heart disease when the opposite is in fact true. We need cholesterol. Our bodies make it. We’re made of it and cannot function when cholesterol levels fall too low. It’s the same hoax which has obesity, diabetes and heart disease increasing as more people are duped into following the state-approved diet. If you want to live longer and stay healthy, for goodness sake keep away from government and the medical establishment.

If you want to make sense of it all and take some good advice, I’d recommend this interview with Gary Taubes.

The sheer wickedness of the Human Rights Industry is a wonder to behold;

British doctors are being warned that they face legal action if they refuse to accept illegal immigrants as patients. Human rights lawyers have been threatening doctors who have removed failed asylum seekers from their surgery lists – even though they are not entitled to free NHS care. Meanwhile, figures reveal that foreigners, including tourists and migrants, have been given an estimated £40million of free NHS treatment in the past three years. Anyone who does normally live  in the UK – including tourists – is meant to pay for any NHS treatment they receive. The only exceptions are urgent care received in A&E departments or treatment for certain infectious diseases such as tuberculosis. Refugees and asylum seekers are given free NHS treatment, but if their application to remain in the UK is turned down by the Home Office they lose the entitlement.

Get that? The Human Rights Vultures are circling the medical profession, demanding that the needs of illegal immigrants are put ahead of those of British citizens. GP’s have finite budgets and this way, the ££millions demanded by the illegal immigrant fraternity leave less for UK patients. Is that fair and reasonable? Why should our Doctors be pressurised in this way by lawyers? The taxpayer funds this and if the Human Rights Industry does not like it then perhaps the taxpayer funding should be reviewed?

Proving that it’s not just hopeless but a positively dangerous outfit, the (US) Federal Drug Administration has declined to move against BPA. BPA (Bisphenol A) is a compound found in food and drink packaging over which there are health concerns. My reading around it leads me to avoid the stuff wherever possible. Ideally we’d all be alert and inquisitive consumers making our own choices, but insofar as States put out health advice, it strikes me as bad advice to give it a pass.

BPA is found in many types of plastic bottles, a problem for people like me who like to have water with them all day. So I did a sensible thing a couple of years ago and bought these two beauties on the left, from Klean Kanteen. I have one with me whenever I walk out the house. That’s all there is to them, just 18/8 food-grade stainless steel. You can put alcohol or acidic juices in if you like, and there are no worries about anything leaching. Sigg is a popular brand of metal bottle, but they’re made of aluminium and because of that they require a “baked on epoxy liner”. That doesn’t sit well with me, and Sigg is pretty secretive about what exactly is in that liner. Besides other concerns, there are fears of it containing BPA.

So I’ll stick with my Klean Kanteens. Peace of mind, no leaching, no metallic taste to water, they’re fully recyclable if that’s a concern and one other thing – I’ve saved a fortune in not buying bottled water in shops.