Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth

Some months ago I was in Summerlee Museum in Coatbridge. It's an industrial museum and charts the rise and fall of the steel and coal industry in Coatbridge, which was one of the biggest producers in the UK. It goes further than that though; it also charts the day to day life of the workers who earned their living from these industries and their struggle for a basic quality of life. The banner above comes from those times.

I found it a very sobering visit. I always knew that conditions had been bad and that mining was dangerous but somehow it got under my skin. It was stark and understated and that made it all the more shocking. And I asked myself; in those conditions, where people were dying every day from injury, from disease and from neglect, how could they ever imagine that things could get better? How could they not have the spirit crushed out of them in those conditions? How did we get to the stage that we did have a health service, a mininum wage, health and safety and so on?

The answer? Those who dreamed of those things accepted that they probably would not have them for themselves. But it was enough for them that those coming after them would and so they put the changes in place, stone by stone. Lawrence of Arabia once said that the people to watch for were those who dreamed with their eyes open. And so they are. They are the builders of cities and the sowers of ideas. And all that we have, we owe to those who went before us, who did not lose hope, even in the despair that they worked in.

This has been a bad couple of weeks for the blogosphere. We have lost Jobbing Doctor for the time being and Rita Pal has a story about a friend who has been pursued by the GMC for four years and ODd. They pulled through, but we are in hard times for the NHS and sometimes it just doesn't seem worth it. We cannot imagine things getting better or that we make a difference. But we do. History shows it. All progress depends on those who hope and work to make their dreams real.

We may not see the fruits of what we do in our time. But it matters for those coming after us. Let's hope. Let's continue. And let's not let the bastards get us down.


Say not the struggle naught availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke conceal'd,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light;
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!
But westward, look, the land is bright!

And Now For Something Completely Different...

Thanks to Obnoxio the Clown for the link..

Health Minister?Common Sense?Can it Be?

Just come across this article from the Beeb. Andrew Langsley is relaxing the 48 hour target on seeing a GP and the four hour target in hospitals. He says this is to cut down on management costs and that quality of care matters more than targets.

Health Minister? Common sense? In the same sentence?

I'm totally flabbergasted...

I Hate Tesco

There's a guy I know who's a doctor. He doesn't go shopping in the supermarket himself, but his wife or daughter does it for him. He's not a chauvinist pig or anything like that; it's just that when he goes in, people look in his trolley to see what he's buying and it really hacks him off. Now in the last analysis, maybe it doesn't matter, but it is one of those fingering, cozying up to you kind of serial killer fascinations that can really freak you out. You know the kind of thing;

Jean Van Damme 'Are you going to release my wife or am I going to make a film about tracking you down and killing you in a really cool way?'

Mad Serial Killer ' I know you have Kellogg's Crunchy Nut Cornflakes for breakfast every day and you were the only person to buy Kellogg's Pop Tarts when they brought them out. And you have cheap shoes as well..

I don't have a Tesco Clubcard for this reason. I would like to tell you it's because I'm a fugitive from justice or a danger to the state, but in reality it's because I-do-not-like Tesco knowing what I buy every week. I don't want them to know that I always buy chicken portions for Saturday, mince for Sunday and that I convert the mince into a chilli con carne for Monday. I don't want them to know that I always buy Orange and Mango juice and avoid their own brand at all costs. And if I am weak and give way to a packet of Milk Chocolate Buttons at the checkout or buy a bottle of Oxford Landing to get blootered on, it's my business. Not Tesco's. Not the companies that buy this info from Tesco to sell you holidays and insurance and all the rest of it. And if I end up a fugitive from justice, it's none of their frigging business either.

So why am I telling you this? Well, I had the bright idea of having my weekend shopping delivered. So I went online to set it up, only to find that I had to sign up for a Clubcard or the deal was off. It was put in quite a sly fashion. It wasn't actually marked as a mandatory field but with a slightly posher wee kind of sword mark that you know means trouble. And when you tried to ignore it, a message came up saying that if you ticked this box, you either filled in your Clubcard number or registered for one. If you didn't tick the box you would return to the home page.
I decided that I wasn't having it. So tomorrow I will be chuntering round Tesco at 12.30 along with half the population of Coatbridge and I will stand at the checkout and confess to the assistant, that a) I don't have a Clubcard b)I am not collecting points for Sport for Schools c) I forgot my long life bags yet again and d)yes I would like 7 of your non eco friendly bags and could you double up on the bag with the Oxford Landing in it?

I hate Tesco...

Are Medi Bloggers Being Picked Off?

Two months ago, Dr Crippen, the daddy of medi bloggers retired. It wasn't entirely unexpected - he had had a couple of breaks from blogging before and was showing signs of fatigue. But now Jobbing Doctor has 'taken a break' from blogging, just a few hours after doing a routine post about shoulder injections. He has taken down all his posts and has even removed Sam and Frodo, his two cats from the page.

One medi blogger could be an accident. Two looks like carelessness. Three? Who's going to be next and what is going on?

Dr Crippen and JD weren't any old bloggers. They were the best and there's a feeling that something a bit more sinister is going on here. Are they getting picked off? And if they are, what can we do to support them?

Some years ago, I visited a country with a repressive regime. The food and clothes were very cheap. But the books were the same price as they are here, which made them six times more expensive for the people of that country than they are for us. The thing that a government prizes and fears above all is the flow of information. They do not take kindly to areas that they have no control over and that is the blogosphere. It is a compliment that we are now attracting this kind of unwelcome attention, but we now have to move and ensure that that conduit of the unvarnished truth does not get blocked.

People as eloquent as JD are not going to be left in peace to speak out. We need to work out a way of letting them do this without being identified. Maybe we need to band together on one blog with several authors. Maybe we need to get non medics to host blogs and post for them. But we cannot allow our fellow bloggers to be silenced in this fashion.

JD, if you're out there and something has happened, let us know. Maybe it's not what we think, but if it is please tell us. We cannot let this happen and let the grey men in suits whom you detested, shut us down. Haste ye back.

How to Get First Class Treatment..

Two patients limp into two different medical clinics with the same complaint.


Both have trouble walking and appear to require a hip replacement.

The FIRST patient is examined within the hour, is x-rayed the same day and
has a time booked for surgery the following week.

The SECOND sees a family doctor after waiting 3 weeks for an appointment,
then waits 16 weeks to see a specialist, then gets an x-ray, which isn't
reviewed for another week and finally has surgery scheduled for 6 months from then.

Why the different treatment for the two patients?

The FIRST is a Golden Retriever.




The SECOND is a Senior Citizen.


Go figure...

Vote John Winton for NHS Fife

The first ever Health Board elections are running in NHS Fife at the mo. It's going to be very interesting to see how this turns out. The ballot is a postal one, rather than polling booths. The papers were sent out three weeks ago and they have to be returned by 4pm on the 10th June. There are 61 candidates for 12 seats and it's being done on the single transferable vote.

It's gratifying that there's been so much interest. But a quick check down the candidates reveals a good number of ex councillors and health board members. Now I know the sceptics amongst you are going to say that this was bound to happen and so it was. But there is a value to this. People other than councillors and health board afficianados can apply and get voted in by the public. The previous system was that all the candidates for the health board were ex councillors and health board afficianados, and they were appointed. Jo Bloggs didn't get a look in, so this is an improvement.

So who should you vote for in NHS Fife? There's only one man for the job and that's John Winton. John has been the conscience of NHS Fife for the past seven years. He is part of the Local Health Concern group and has harried the board over several issues, esp over the slippage on the Diagnostic and Treatment Centre at the Queen Margaret in Dunfermline. NHS Fife hasn't had its troubles to seek recently; the A&E at the Victoria in Kirkaldy has gone part time due to a shortage of doctors, something they were warned about months ago. It was also one of the three health boards caught up in the Stracathro fiasco, an independent treatment centre that took £15 million for a set number of hip and knee replacement operations, and then said that it wasn't going to operate on anyone who was a risk. As most people receiving such replacements are over 65, it meant that at times occupancy was running at only 50%. This has now been claimed back by the NHS and its future is still to be decided.

John is part of the Scottish Health Campaign Network and is genuinely independent. He knows what the issues are and what he's talking about. More importantly, he knows what the solutions are. If you don't want to vote for a placeman, vote for John and I can assure you that he will get his teeth into the job (and into anyone that needs it).