PATIENTS are dying in corridors because they can’t get into A&E.
Ambulances are taking hours and hours to arrive.
And people find it impossible to get an appointment with their local GP.
All across the country you hear the same thing. On the TV news, in the papers: “The NHS is in crisis!”
Well, yep, sure. No doubting that.
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But then it always is, isn’t it? I cannot remember a time in my life when the NHS WASN’T in crisis.
But to listen to the BBC and the Opposition politicians and some of the health professionals, you’d think the answer was simple: Spend some more money on it!
The evil Tories have starved the NHS of cash!
If we spent more, everything would be OK!
This couldn’t be further from the truth.
We are spending more money on our NHS now than at any time in history.
The Scots spend more per head on their health system than we do.
And yet it is even worse than ours.
We spend more per head of population than the likes of Italy and Spain.
And more than the average for European Union countries.
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Addled old drunk
And yet the situation people find themselves in, when they rock up at A&E with flu dribbling out of their ears, is something that you might find in developing countries.
Quite clearly, the system is broken.
There are too many bureaucrats and middle managers and nowhere near enough doctors.
Too much taxpayers’ money is wasted on fatuous jobs in “diversity” and “lived experience”.
Too often, the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing.
Communication between trusts and departments is appalling.
It can take an age to sort out even the simplest of things.
The problem is, the NHS is no longer expected simply to do the job it was set up to do, after the Second World War.
We demand much more from it these days and, because we’re living longer, there is greater pressure on the NHS from all those elderly people with chronic illnesses.
If we’re going to have an NHS at all — a health service free at the point of entry for everyone — we are going to have to lower our expectations a bit.
What we want is an NHS which provides acute, lifesaving treatment.
Not fertility treatment, not plastic surgery, not transitioning surgery.
It should be for emergencies and life-threatening illnesses, such as heart disease, strokes and cancer.
For things that pose an immediate risk to health.
But we also need to encourage — if not insist upon — medical insurance for all the other health problems which are not life-threatening.
This includes a lot of what we call geriatric care.
It would remove an enormous burden from the NHS and enable doctors and nurses to concentrate on saving lives.
But say this, and Lefties will scream: “You’re creating a two-tier system!”
Well, sure, but what’s wrong with that? There’s no problem with private involvement in the best health systems in Europe — in Switzerland, France and Germany.
It would take a brave politician to suggest such a change — and I don’t see many of those around at the moment.
But if we don’t change things, the NHS will simply stagger along like an addled old drunk, from crisis to worse crisis, and more of us will die as a result.
MY New Year resolutions this year were to be a little less understanding and tolerant about other people, especially the young, and to spend more money directly on myself.
I am a weak-willed individual and find sticking to resolutions very difficult.
So please wish me luck in these difficult tasks.
Oh puddings!
WE didn’t eat our Christmas pudding this year.
We didn’t eat it the year before, either.
Or the year before that.
But we dutifully buy the bloody thing every December.
We've got about 20 stored in the cupboard under the stairs.
But then who can eat a Christmas pudding when you’ve just stuffed yourself with turkey?
It’s one of those things you buy because you think you’re meant to.
Here comes Transanta Claus
MY 17-year-old daughter has found a website called Transanta.
It provides Christmas gifts for transgender young people.
Or for young people who might want to be transgender.
My daughter does not fit into either category.
But it didn’t stop her writing: “I am a gender-fluid transgender teen who has fascist parents.
Please send me a PS5, a Terry’s Chocolate Orange and a large bottle of vodka. Thank you.”
If it works, I might give it a go next year.
Ron 'n' only clown
THE modest and likeable Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo has arrived in Saudi Arabia.
Or “South Africa”, as he called it at the press conference.
He’s just signed a contract worth £177million a year to play in the desert for the lovely, modern, democratic Saudis.
He said: “I beat all the records there [in Europe] and I want to beat the records here,” before adding: “This contract is unique because I’m a unique player as well so, for me, it’s normal.”
No mention that he was uniquely s**te in the World Cup.
Nor any comment about his disastrous return to at Manchester United.
Ah well.
Enjoy the camel-racing, Cristiano.
And stay classy.
I'd sack em all
THE New Year arrives.
Turn on the TV on the morning of 1/1/23 and who’s on it?
That slab of meat with mittens Mick Lynch.
One year gone, another started.
But Thick Mick, boss of the rail workers’ RMT union, is still doing his stuff.
Causing misery for people up and down the country.
I was quite pro the rail workers back in the autumn.
Now? Stuff ’em.
Give them nothing.
And if they strike again, sack them.
They have caused too much damage for us to give a damn about them.
