Don't Worry - Be Happy

Coatbridge, where I live, is famed for many things. It has the highest rate of heart disease in Western Europe, is the home of deep fried Mars bars (could the two be connected?) and was given >the Carbuncle award (unfairly in my opinion) for worst town. However, things are looking up. Monklands (of which Coatbridge is part) has just been named in the top five 'happy' places in Britain. So has Cumbernauld and Kilsyth.
This conclusion was reached by a research team from Sheffield and Manchester universities, who took data from the British Household Panel Survey and used it to draw a 'happiness' map of Britain. This involved questions about peoples' sense of wellbeing, coupled with data about employment and environment. I haven't been so pleased since Albion Rovers came top of the league (the third division league, that is.)

Ps Cumbernauld and Airdrie (the other half of Monklands) have also won the Carbuncle award for worst town. Is there a connection between concrete and happiness?

Take a Drink?

I was on the NHS media monitoring site, when I came across this intensely depressing article about a child with Korsakoff's syndrome, (alcohol related dementia). Scotland has the highest rate of this disease and already has two nursing homes dedicated to younger sufferers of this, in Glasgow.

There's many reasons for our national drink problem, which I have discussed in other posts. But what worries me, is that guides to how much we drink are out-of-date. For example most of them base their calculations for wine on a 125ml glass at a strength of 12%. What most people are being served, is a 175ml glass at 13%. To give you an idea of the difference, look at the picture here. The glass on the left has 125ml, the glass in the middle, 175ml, and the glass at the end, 250ml.If you drink a 125ml glass at 12%, that is 1.5 units. If you drink a 175ml glass at 13%, that is 2.3 units.

I want people to enjoy themselves. But I also want people to be safe and healthy. So I'm putting this link, Drink Unit Calculator in the blog list, so that you can check how much you're really drinking. We really need to take responsibility for our health, and watch out for those in our company who have a drink problem and help them. Only when the culture changes and it's acceptable for people to take a soft drink without it being remarked on, will we really get to grips with this problem.

And Now for Some Good News

The Vale of Leven is back in the news again, but this time for a good reason; Greater Glasgow Health Board have agreed to retain its maternity services. And the Highland doctor who said some not-nice things about Dame Carol Black has had his suspension lifted. My only regret is that I would really have loved to have heard the case for the prosecution at the GMC hearing. Conduct unbecoming? Insubordination? Using foul language? Speaking what everyone was thinking? You wouldn't have been able to hear the evidence above the roars of laughter. Oh well, merde happens, as they probably don't say in France..

When You are Old and Grey and Full of Sleep..

This was going to start out as a natty wee post about the naff 'ageism' campaign that the Scottish Government is running just now (see above). It was going to be about how dementia funding has halved, nursing homes are shutting and health visitors and district nurses are going to be merged into one, to the detriment of the very young and very old. That is, until I heard the radio equivalent of this advert, where a young man is in the post office and an 'old biddy' is holding up the queue.He is muttering about what a pest she is, until he realises that the old biddy, is in fact his gran. My stomach did a flip at this advert. Why? Because it took me back two years ago, to when my aunt was in hospital. I had been going up to visit her, and one day when I went up, she had been moved to another room in the ward. I had walked past the room without recognition; she was just another old lady. When I was re-directed,I realised with a shock that that was exactly what my aunt was; an old lady, but it was the first time that I had seen her like that. She had just always been my aunt.

There's always been a separation between the young and the old. And the old and the very young have always been discriminated against. We pride ourselves on having progressed in this area, and certainly a lot of the casual ageist comments have gone. But what is underneath? Are we progressing, or has the separation, in fact become greater?

Let's take a look at the two professions that look after the young and old; parents and carers. Now imagine that you are one of these; that is all that you do. You are in company and someone asks what your job is. How comfortable would you feel in replying? And how much would you bet that someone would say, 'So you don't work then?'

Parenthood and being a carer, are two jobs that are admired in public and despised in private. Everyone acknowledges that they do an essential job, but noone wants to be the one to do it. Those who do, are regarded as losers who did it because they had no other choice in life. Who wants to look after screaming kids or old biddies, after all?

Why is it that we think this way? Why do we have nothing to offer them and feel that they have nothing to offer us? Without children we don't have a future, do we? And we all grow old, don't we? Are any of us looking forward to sitting in chairs in a home, being bawled at by nurses who think we're all deaf (and stupid?) Why do we think that's good enough for the elderly at present?

I still think this advert is naff. I do not want it to become a substitute for proper funding of care. But I do think there is a grain of truth in it. We need to look at our collective soul and ask if our society is losing its humanity, or if we can still see that life is more than food and the body more than clothing.

Fish and Flyting - the Revenge of the Bureaucrat

Flyting- an old Scots poetry tradition, where two or more poets try to outdo each other in bandying insults in verse. Usually involves copious use of scatological language.

Fish - an uninspiring, wet, flappy kind of creature, usually without a sense of humour.

Professor Elisabeth Paice - named after a fish, (but doesn't smoke)and has just reported a Highland junior doctor to his deanery for sounding off in a blog about the re-election of Dame Carol Black to the chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges.

Just to give a quick bit of background; Dame Carol Black was heavily involved in promoting Modernising Medical Careers, or Mangling Medical Careers as it has now become known. She is the last person that a lot of junior doctors wanted elected to this chair. Many of them are sitting without jobs as a result of it. So you let off a bit of steam, or 'excrementous and scatological language' as Elisabeth Paice put it. She also said she felt 'compelled' to complain.(Why?)

The whole episode is petty and depressing. Leaders just ain't what they used to be.
Courts used to have their jokers, who would do their Rory Bremner about all the gossip and scandal in the court.It was considered healthy.
When a cardinal complained to Borgia that Michaelangelo had painted the cardinal in the Hell section of the Sistine frescoes (Michaelangelo was annoyed, because the cardinal said the figures were too naked) Borgia told him he was going to have to stay there, because once you were in Hell, that was it. Even Maggie Thatcher watched Spitting Image and professed to love her puppet. What's wrong with all these thin skinned bureaucrats? Why can't they turn round like Caligula and say, 'Let them hate, so long as they fear!'

Y'know, being a public figure has its drawbacks. It isn't nice to read criticism about yourself. It isn't nice when they use bad language. But it is part of the job and if you can't take the heat, you should stay out of the kitchen. And maybe what has got to the Professor, is that this doctor's criticism about Dame Carol Black is justified and that's what they really can't endure.

Anyway, to the Highland doc who is at present suspended; I'm glad to see you continue the good Scots tradition of flyting. And I hope that common sense will prevail and that you get your job back. If some of the blogs I have been reading are anything to go by, Elisabeth Paice ain't seen nothing yet..

Vale of Leven - on the Periphery

Another perspective on the Vale's problems from a Dr Constance Ross in the Herald.

T he Deadly Land of Limbo - the Vale of Leven Crisis

'Give a dog a bad name and hang it' is a time honoured political stratagem. You have to do something unpleasant,like close a hospital or a school. You know there is going to be a stushie if you attempt it straightaway. So what do you do? You go for the long game. Let the place run down, send the best staff elsewhere and when it has gained itself a bad name, close it.

That is, I'm afraid, the long and the short of the C-Difficile crisis unfolding at the Vale of Leven hospital . The Vale's problems, on the face of it, are very similar to other hospitals. Lack of space, beds too close together, a high turnover of patients; you could be talking about any hospital in Scotland. The key difference, however, is that the Vale of Leven has been in limbo for ten years over its future. This means that noone is going to stop there for long, because their future is uncertain; you come to rely heavily on temporary staff and you have difficulty providing leadership, because there is no continuity and no loyalty. It is of little comfort to the relatives of those who died, but I am pleased to note that Nicola Sturgeon has recognised this as the main problem. What is needed now, is a clear decision about the Vale. What is also needed is a firm taking to task of the health board, who were warned about the situation, but let it run. It is time for the politics to end and for the Vale to be let out of limbo. Lives depend on it.

The Write Stuff

Here's Margaret Hinds from the South East Forum, on hospital hygiene. A lot of common sense proposals, that would be relatively inexpensive, including getting people not to wear their work clothes home and regulating the behaviour of visitors. For the past couple of months I have been visiting someone in hospital and the behaviour of visitors in terms of hygiene astounds me. Sitting on beds, using patient toilets, not using the Hibiscrub wash which is at the entry of every room. Mind you, I don't think it's a good idea for the staff of the hospital to eat in the WRVS canteen that the visitors use. I think antibiotics has made us all lazy about preventing infection. Anyway, read and enjoy!