Once upon a time, the NHS cared about patients. Now all it cares about is money and control. There was a time when doctors worked for our benefit buit now they expect us to work for theirs – and pay for it too.
Via Dick Puddlecote on Farcebook comes the news that NHS Grampian has decided to increase its smoker-hate while ignoring all the things that really kill people in its hospitals but hey – as long as they don’t die of smoking, it doesn’t matter what kills them, right?
And still the NHS wonders why people don’t trust doctors any more…
Could it be because they are no longer listening? Because they prefer to be dictatorial than to discuss? Because… they are not actually medics any more, but farmers run by Pharmers?
Will they see the problem before we go back to the shamans and the witchdoctors?
Probably not – which is why so many already have.
underdogs bite upwards 
Not that they give the tiniest shit about our views but I filled in their survey, honestly, and with only very mild swearing, a couple of references to Nazis and several suggestions they should all give up their jobs and do something useful instead.
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I filled it in too. Most of my suggested ‘solutions to obstacles’ involved sacking entire departments and using the health service as… a health service.
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Open up any inner-London free paper and check the adverts – plenty of shamans and witchdoctors for hire!
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At least the guy in the grass skirt waving a stick and a rabbit skull at you actually believes in what he’s trying to do!
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Survey completed. Politely and very firmly.
(A waste of time, but you do what you can.)
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I thought it a waste of time too – they won’t read mine to the end before pressing ‘delete’.
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Brilliant! Doctors acting like Pharmers.
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The NHS now exists primarily to control, subvert, gather information for the Government and kill. I know I’ve said it before and I’ll keep on saying it.
My local Death Board are great. They refused treatment then when I complained, my GP surgery asked me to find a new practice. A couple of days later, they ‘phone me up and say they have me “down as a smoker” and would I like help giving up.
Like they give a darn.
I told the woman that I refuse to give that information and asked how much money the practice receives in “helping” people “quit”. She couldn’t tell me.
And in this land of supposed “equality”, why is a GP’s salary 3 or 4 times that of a nurse, teacher, copper or fireman?
Is it to ease their conscience (what’s left of it) for all the controlling, subverting, gathering information for the Government and killing they help do?
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And make £trillions for the Pharmers, of course, but you already knew that.
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Hired killers are always well paid. Conversely, if they paid nurses more, they’d get more good ones.
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OK, done it. They’ll just bin it of course. Noted the addresses to send any letters of complaint about wasting money:
Carole-ann Duff, Public Health Directorate, NHS Grampian, Summerfield House, Eday Road. Aberdeen. AB15 6RE. (caroleannduff@nhs.net. ). Queries to Derek Petrie, Tobacco Control Coordinator, same address, Tel: 01224 558575. (derekpetrie@nhs.net.) or Steven Lindsay, Senior Partnership Representative. (steven.lindsay@nhs.net)
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I wouldn’t bother sending them letters of complaint about wasting money. They see it as their right to waste our money on telling us what to do. maybe more productive to write to MPs (in simple terms, of course) explaining how they are being shown to be fools by these people.
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I filled in The Grampian survey.
😀 😀 😀
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Oho, I bet that was a good one!
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As a long-time ago ex-smoker I filled in my share, obviously taking the same approach as the assembled company. It would undoubtedly fail to give them the data they’re looking for so it will probably lost on a memory stick somewhere.
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I completed it too, bad for my blood pressure and I expect it will be ignored anyway.
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Likewise. The last question re ecigs gives the game away. It is not about health, otherwise they would include ecigs in their freebies. But the whole thing is based upon the childish use of the phrase ‘fresh air’. That reveals the propaganda aspect of the the proposals. They might as well announce, “NO SCIENCE INVOLVED”.
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Oh, and I meant to say that I do not see how they can put any of their proposals into effect without the government giving them the power to make general laws about smoking in the open air. But I had also to think about football clubs banning smoking inside their stadia and railway stations including open platforms in non-smoking areas. What is their justification? It cannot just be a matter the fact that football grounds and platforms are their property, otherwise there would be no problem with hospital grounds. It could be that football grounds and stations are enclosed as a whole, or there could be some element of danger. Neither of those considerations apply to the grounds of hospitals. Note that in those places, it is the lit cigarette which may be the problem and not the smoke.
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Hospital grounds are not privately owned – we pay for them. That’s different to a private company that owns the land it’s on – the private company can declare no smoking, no photography, no standing on one leg if they want. On public land (we pay for it, remember), they have no such power.
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My son drives trains and as far as I know the platform ban is not a legal reqirement and down to the company. A few years ago there was talk of it being lifted but it never came to anything.
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It is indeed down to the company. I hear some are now not bothering to enforce the rule or are trying to pretend it never happened. You couldn’t smoke on buses before the ban but you could on trains. Now you can’t smoke on either, they are the same, and the bus is much cheaper. Somewhere in the dim recesses of a railway executive’s mind, the ‘you have been suckered’ light might be flickering into life.
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One of the main reasons for a blanket ban on smoking in trains, which would no doubt have happened even without the law, is the need to utilise maximum space. Having areas devoted to different types of passenger is more costly, that’s why first class is rare outside of premium services now. Doesn’t make it right of course but that’s the way the modern world works, if you’re different and don’t belong to some favoured identity group then you can bugger off.
The platform ban is just silly and has no possible justification behind it, economic or otherwise. It also gives jobsworths a chance to boss people about, something the railways love doing now with the constant announcements instructing you to do this that and the other. As a friend says, it’s a wonder they don’t have one reminding you to breathe.
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XX is the need to utilise maximum space.XX
Aye. I had noticed the ever decreasing lack of luggage space.
Hel! You have anything bigger than a €100 note in your wallet, you will be lucky to find enough space to fit on the train, let alone all the holiday packing.
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Trains have been turned into super trams really. The thinking is that they should be fast, frequent and have a minimal level of luxury or even comfort in some cases. Budget airlines do the same thing. Inevitable I suppose when so many people want to travel and as cheaply as possible but for an oldster like me who likes railways it makes modern train travel thoroughly uninteresting. You can’t even see out of the windows half the time.
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WE are traveling to Leipzig tomorow, for the Re-enactment of the Volkerschlacht (22 years).
Someone offered to pay for us to use the ICE (The main line “luxury” trains here.)
FORGET it!
We are taking the Inter Regional (Interregion, or IR, as they are known.)
AND we will be sitting in the compartment meant for push bikes.
It is the ONLY way we can transport all our kit. It is actualy faster than the ICEs, You are virtually GARUNTEED a seat, AND, it is a good couple of hundred euro cheaper!
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Don’t forget photos (of the trains, naturally).
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The trains, also, have lost a lot of character. Most local ones look like a rake of carriages rolling around on their own.
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Many trains don’t have an accesible guard’s van any more. Just a little space at the end of the carriage, designed to hold about a tenth of the luggage that gets crammed into it.
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The passenger guards brake was one of the delights of the old railway, a glimpse into the hidden world of operations for the passing passenger. I particularly liked the smell, a mixture of wood, oil and smoke – tobacco and coal.
The goods brakes were even better, spartan but cosy, a kind of mobile signal cabin, places for those of us who like our own company.
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It was my dream to be the brakeman on a coal train. By the time I was old enough, they had pretty much done away with the brake vans altogether.
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When an elderly diesel passes, it’s best not to breathe.
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I had great pleasure in doing the survey…… Mine will get lost on that memory stick as well. I had berated them over e cigs long before I got to the last question and was able to say there I knew what you were up to all along.
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Didn’t even bother doing it. You lot have probably already said everything I’d say anyway. But in any case we all know what the announced result will be don’t we? Yes, it’ll be that old stalwart “80%” wheeled out again: “80% of people taking part in our survey agreed that all hospital premises should be smoke-free.”
What is it about this magical “80%”? It crops up, give or take one or two, every time there’s one of these so-called surveys. 80% of the population were (apparently) in support of the smoking ban; 80% of the population (apparently) like the ban now it’s here; 80% of people (apparently) think that smoking should be banned in children’s play areas; 80% of people think that higher prices will deter young people from taking up smoking; etc etc etc ad nauseum. Why is it never 65%. Or 70%. Or 90%?
I’m beginning to think that somewhere in the small print of some ASH “how to” manual, the figure of 80% “approval” must have been cited as the ideal figure to quote – high enough to be a large enough majority to enable the enforcers to impose whatever policy they want, but not so high as to sound just tooooo suspicious for words. After all, even die-hard ban-supporters would surely begin to get suspicious if every one of these “surveys” got a 100% approval rating.
But watch this space. I’ll betcha the final figure (in favour of a premises-wide ban, of course), will be around the 80% mark – maybe 78 or 79, but certainly not straying very far short from the magic number …
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I wonder if they just say ‘Well 80% of people don’t smoke, therefore 80% of people agree with us’. It’s the kind of cretinous logic you’d expect from them.
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I was recently in the Infirmary for a week or so, luckily my bed in the ward was right at the window, I gazed down one day and seen the beautiful sight of all manner of people with many ailments happily puffing away outside the doors.
Next visit I had ordered m Mum and bro “my raincoat, twenty Regal and a lighter”.
All ages, some walking wounded, some in wheelchairs assisted by nurses or relatives, luckily I could make it up and down on my own two feet, twas fucking pathetic,,,
What are they going to do? Discharge us from medical supervision?
Then some ambulance chasing lawyers for medical malpractice?
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A friend makes regular visits to hospital, He’s been taken outside to smoke by nurses – as long as he rolls them one as well 😉
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