This is a ‘Sacred Cow Zone’ – no Aitch stuff here!

 

Despite the latest dose of ‘the troubles of Aitch’, usefully documented in the usual place (link), this place is an ‘Aitch-free zone’. While the lefty papers in contrast have gone for ‘hospital crisis’ and Sunak there’s also China. However, if you expected more ‘news’ on China, as promised in the compilation’s headline then you’d be disappointed. There’s only the FT with this item on their print frontpage, placed conveniently right at the bottom by the BBC staff writer.

Before I get to this piece of news, let me set the mood with ‘news’ found in the DM, namely that certain MPs have been raking it in, to the tune of £17m since 2019 (link). Funny how nobody asks if the time they spent on all those lucrative ‘engagements’ might not have been better used to address the crises we find ourselves in. 

As for those ‘China news’: they’re not even on the FT’s online frontpage any longer (link), one has to dig deeply through their heap of ‘interesting’ ’ stories.It is however relevant and ought to ring alarm bells everywhere. It’s about the US and Japan integrating their forces and command structures, in preparation for a possible conflict with China.

Before one lets this report drop as the usual sabre-rattling we’ve come to know and are shrugging off, given our own home-made crises, there’s this remark from the US commanding general, saying that:

“[…] the US and its allies in Asia were emulating the groundwork that had enabled western countries to support Ukraine’s resistance to Russia in preparing for scenarios such as a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “Why have we achieved the level of success we’ve achieved in Ukraine? A big part of that has been because after Russian aggression in 2014 and 2015, we earnestly got after preparing for future conflict: training for the Ukrainians, pre-positioning of supplies, identification of sites from which we could operate support, sustain operations,” (link, paywalled)

The reference to the Ukraine is rather interesting, is it not, and doesn’t bode well for the peaceful future of the Far East. It’s an acknowledgement by a US top military person who let’s drop that perhaps Putin’s reason for the SMO in Ukraine wasn’t ‘a lie’.

Now let’s look at a ‘crisis’ closer to home: our beloved Sacred Cow. On the one hand the government has ‘found’ another £200m for the NHS, to spend on ‘buying beds in private care homes’. Don’t ask if yon care homes actually have the staff to look after those extra patients. Look at this (this and all following emphases are mine):

“Stephen Barclay, the Health Secretary, will unveil plans on Monday to discharge within days a quarter of the 13,000 medically fit patients who are stuck on wards but do not need to be in hospital. Thousands more will be transferred to care homes within weeks to free up hospital beds for patients from A&E wards, reducing pressure on emergency departments and speeding up ambulance handovers. […] The extra £200 million – on top of £500 million already earmarked to tackle bed blockers – will allow trusts to buy beds in bulk for up to four weeks for each patient until the end of March.” (paywalled link)

Why do our esteemed ‘reporters’ not ask how come these ‘medically fit’ patients haven’t already been ‘released’, given that NHS ‘source’s have moaned in the MSM about the ‘bed crisis’ and the coming flu epidemic? Do NHS trust managers and admin staff need ‘permission’ from the government? Or was this a ploy by the NSH to wring more money out of us taxpayers? There’s more:

“Health officials estimated 3,000 patients could be sent to care homes within a week but said the total number transferred by the end of March would depend on clinical judgements by local NHS trust staff wary of being pressured to discharge before patients were fit enough. GPs and community services will be provided to the patients in the care homes to help them return home as soon as possible.” (paywalled link)

It looks as if ‘health officials’ are already rowing back, being uncertain if they can deliver. They’re also passing the buck to GPs and local ‘community services’, as if they don’t know full well in what dire straits those two entities are. It’s not just pie-in-the-sky, it’s clearly about getting more money for the Sacred Cow while trying to dazzle us peasants with the proverbial brown bovine stuff:

“Mr Barclay will also announce pilot schemes to free up hospital beds, including dementia hubs where patients are discharged to specialist care settings and are supervised to reduce risk of being readmitted. The schemes will include specialist rehabilitation units in the community to aid patients’ recovery after discharge and the development of new IT systems to improve communication between hospitals and community groups.” (paywalled link)

Good grief! So we’ll have even more ‘services’, some time in the glorious future? And then the PM makes another ‘promise’:

“Mr Sunak also wants to increase the number of beds by 7,000, through a mix of hospital and virtual wards, where people suffering acute respiratory infections, for example, can be monitored at home rather than in wards. The NHS is aiming to set up 40 to 50 virtual beds per 100,000 of the population by 2024.” (paywalled link)

Good grief – I can hardly wait! I bet those ‘virtual beds’ will be accessible only via nice smartphone apps, thus giving the government yet another window into our private lives. But that’s not all. The DT reassures us that it’s not just our own NSH buckling under the strain but that “[…] health services are imploding all over Europe – Waiting times are surging, staff are leaving and patients are dying across the continent” (paywalled link).

Meanwhile, ‘iNews’ has other NHS stories, for example that the “NHS discharges patients into hotels to ease bed blocking and A&E crisis” (link). Well, if hotels are good enough for illegal migrants, they’re surely good enough for our own patients, no? There’s also this ‘i News’ report – it’s paywalled so I can only quote the summary:

“Nearly a quarter of British adults (23 per cent) have used overstretched accident and emergency (A&E) departments because they cannot access GP appointments, an exclusive poll for i suggests. Those aged 18-24 were the most likely (43 per cent) to use A&E because they could not get an appointment with their family doctor, compared to around a third (32 per cent) of 25 to 34-year-olds and 35 to 44-year-olds (30 per cent), the Redfield & Wilton poll shared exclusively with i showed.” (link paywalled)

It’s interesting, is it not, that the yoof rushes to A &E more than the older generations. Perhaps that’s why “Doctors and pharmacists call for basic healthcare lessons so pupils don’t bother the NHS” (link, paywalled), as The Times reports. It seems to have escaped their writers’ attention that it’s the sick pupils’ parents who ‘bother’ the NHS. I’m not aware that 12-year-olds rush to the GP or to A & E on their own, but never mind that – see this:

“In a new strategy paper they call for a “wholesale cultural shift” towards more self-care, insisting this could both empower patients and reduce demand. Conditions like lower back pain, the common cold and acute sinusitis can generally be treated without the need for GPs or hospital visits, experts said. They called for the national curriculum to include requirements for both primary and secondary pupils to be taught to treat and manage common health problems at home.” (link, paywalled)

It’s news to me that lower back pain affects primary pupils, but what do I know … Is this an attempt to ‘educate’ parents about ‘self-managing’ their own afflictions, just as pupils in certain dictatorial regimes were expected to educate theirs? After all, it’s what the climate extremists have been doing, isn’t it.

Are those ‘solutions’, from ‘virtual wards’ to ‘pupils’ health education’ preparing us for a ‘health dictatorship’, with the NHS chiefs giving guidance while taking our money without providing adequate service? Who needs GPs if we’re going to use Dr Google, with apps telling us what to do? Is that why some politicians dream of turning GPs into plain old employees of the Sacred Cow? 

That’s all I have for today. Forget war, forget China, forget yon prince but be aware how deeply we’re drifting into a situation where the NHS is the only game in town: an entity with a country attached. Have a self-caring hot toddy now: you know it makes sense!



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