There is now so much information coming about about the failure of the National Health Service (NHS) that I cannot see how anyone can continue to support it in its present form. It’s a mess and it’s a mess not because, as the Left along with the NHS worshippers say, because of lack of funds or ‘privatisation’, but because of the nature of the organisation itself. The NHS is a nationalised industry and like other similar nationalised industries that Britain has had in the past, such as steel, cars and telephones, they have little need to consider the needs or desires of their customers.
The priorities of the patient, as too many of us have found when dealing with the NHS, come a very poor second place when compared to the needs of the staff or the need to protect the organisation of the NHS itself. This staff and organisation centred attitude in the NHS is why there is so much fiscal waste on stuff that does no good for patients but helps NHS workers and managers and it is also why the NHS suffers from long term and ongoing scandals regarding patient safety. When things go wrong then the NHS will work to ensure that it protects itself and its staff rather than do what is best for either current or future patients.
As I said, it is not money but staff attitudes and competences along with the nature of the NHS itself that has created a medical monster where there are lethal and sub lethal maternity department scandals not just locally but nationwide. The Guardian newspaper recently carried an article that showed just how common and how widespread NHS maternity scandals are and how bereaved parents and those parents of babies that were damaged by the NHS are demanding a national inquiry into what is now obviously a national problem.
The Guardian said:
Parents of babies who have died or been harmed as a result of poor care are demanding that ministers order a public inquiry into repeated failings in NHS maternity units.
They want Steve Barclay, the health secretary, to set up a judge-led statutory inquiry to investigate recurring problems in maternity services, which cost the NHS in England £2.6bn a year in damages.
Babies are still being damaged and dying, despite previous inquiries into maternity scandals at the Morecambe Bay, Shrewsbury and Telford, and East Kent NHS trusts recommending changes. The NHS’s failure to improve maternity safety is so alarming that a public inquiry is needed to finally ensure that women and babies no longer come to harm, the families say.
The Maternity Safety Alliance, a group of relatives of newborns who have died due to lapses in NHS childbirth, warned that scandals will continue unless such an inquiry is held.
“Our babies are too precious to keep on ignoring the reality that despite a raft of national initiatives and policies implemented in the wake of investigations and reports, systemic issues continue to adversely impact on the care of women and babies.
“Far too much avoidable harm continues to devastate lives in circumstances that could and should be avoided. Fundamental reform is needed,” they said in a letter urging Barclay to intervene.
The letter’s signatories include Emily Barley, whose daughter Beatrice died at Barnsley hospital last year after staff mistakenly monitored her mother’s heart rate rather than hers.
It has also been signed by Jack and Sarah Hawkins, who have played a key role in highlighting serious weaknesses in maternity care at Nottingham university hospitals NHS trust since their daughter Harriet died there.
The families are “horrified” that, despite countless initiatives, “mums and babies are still suffering and dying due to the same failures in care that we experienced”.
They said: “Over and over again we hear that ‘lessons will be learned’ – and yet those same failings continue.
You can read the rest of the Guardian article via the link below:
These families are right to campaign for a national public inquiry into the lethal state of NHS maternity facilities nationwide. From what these parent are saying there doesn’t seem to be a health trust in the country where avoidable and sometimes lethal or damaging errors are not occurring in maternity units.
I completely agree with those campaigning for an inquiry but I would also like to see a nationwide debate about the nature of the NHS itself and how to replace it with something that delivers comprehensive healthcare to all Britons without the by now obvious failures of the NHS. If you clapped for the NHS like a performing Seal when the government told you to do so then you were also applauding a system that kills and maims babies due to systematic incompetence and individual failings of staff. Those who clapped this awful and failed healthcare system should sit down and take a good long hard look at themselves and just think about the shit that you applauded.
If I may, why is the NHS the “envy of the world” yet no other nation on Earth has nothing even vaguely resembling this system? It appears that rather too many foreigners are quite happy to sponge of our good intentions. Since its foundation the NHS has become the nearest thing to be a secular religion. Once it was to provide medical care but it did not include removal of tattoos, gender reassignment and a whole range of non-essential treatments.
You are correct. No other country has copied the NHS model in its entirety. I certainly agree that no foreigner who has not paid in should get anything other than emergency treatment for free. Personally I’m disgusted with the NHS idol worship and I feel that Britons are demeaned by doing so. No problem with the healthcare system offering a wide range of treatments but I would prioritise IVF over gender reassignment and tattoo removal.