This morning I had my last session of X-Ray treatment for prostate cancer.
As I've mentioned before, the whole diagnosis-treatment process has taken
10 months so far even though the treatment itself consists only of 35 daily
sessions each lasting for three minutes. I haven't even finished yet,
actually. I still need a blood test and a final interview with the
consultant at the hospital. This will still take at least another month for
the NHS (National Health Service) to organise, and probably two months,
which would make 12 months in all. Any self-respecting, half-way efficient
health centre could have had the whole thing done and dusted within a
couple of months from start to finish.
I still haven't had time to organise my thoughts about the NHS in order to
write something for FW, as requested by a subscriber. The truth of the
matter is that I've only needed to see a doctor about four times in my life
and so my "political" thinking has been mainly concerned with economics
generally and employment in particular, and I've given little thought to
the state-run NHS even though I was aware that its general condition was
probably as lamentable, indeed as harmful, as our state-education system.
So for the time being I'll confine myself to quoting two brief paragraphs
of an article written by Prof Norman Barry (University of Buckingham). The
main purpose of the article itself ("Stupid Tories", in the FT today) was
a strong attack on the Conservative Party for not getting down to the
essential task of defining just what they would do for the failing NHS and
education system if, at the next General election, they were to be returned
to power.
He writes:
<<<<
How is it that the fourth biggest economy in the world has such a poor
health care system? The figures speak for themselves: in contrast with the
UK's 7 per cent, the US spends 14 per cent of gross domestic product on
health, Germany 11 per cent and France 10 per cent. When it comes to
measures such as doctors per 1,000 of population, Britain is almost a
third-world country, having about the same number as South Korea or Turkey.
The explanation of these dire figures is blindlingly obvious to any
Conservative whose mind is not befuddled by Gibbon and Macaulay: it is that
the state is responsible for the bulk of public spending in britain. Eighty
per cent of health spending is from direct taxation, with only 12 per cent
from what is laughably called social insurance and a derisory eight per
cent from user charges. The answer to British health problems is not to
reform the state sector but to end its quasi-monopoly powers. People will
spend more privately than the state does publicly for them.
>>>>
Our state-education is so lamentable that although it "teaches" 85 per cent
of the nation's children, it cannot supply anywhere enough doctors or
nurses (or in my recent case, radiographers -- 25 per cent shortage
overall) for our own purposes. Even so, 25 per cent of all doctors leave
the system within 12 months of being qualified. (And similar figures apply
to nurses and teachers also.) So we have to import tens of thousands of
doctors and nurses from all over the world, including third-world countries
which need these precious medical people far more than we do.
The idea of a public health service is still so sacrosanct that one has to
be very careful of what one says about it in England. In the
highly-intelligent, highly-liberal social world in which I move (choirs and
choral singers mainly) I have to keep my mouth shut most of the time when
health matters are discussed. I have to choose my interlocutors very
carefully before I can freely express myself. Otherwise I am likely to be
savagely attacked (as I have been) even by friends I have known for years
-- far worse, I might add, than the occasional "balderdash" that is
occasionally hurled at me in this mailing list.
Keith Hudson
___________________________________________________________________
Keith Hudson, General Editor, Calus <http://www.calus.org>
6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727;
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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