91Èȱ¬

SERVICE TO MIND AND BODY CANNOT TRANSCEND CULTURE AND LANGUAGE.

The morass that out politicians have created in their weirdly driven ineptitude, has to be suffered to be believed. I have encountered the problem (so far) in NHS dentistry and hospital, and private care home.
Juggernaughts are driven by men who have two words of English, driving on the 'wrong side' - bad enough, but the distress to those confused and or in pain, now delivered by incomprehensible workers in the medical world, is increasing, and reaction is only held in check by the 'PC dam'.

Here is proof, if proof were needed, that our politicians do not relate to the real world. How in heaven did we get here? Every day this situation gets worse. There must NOW be foreigners confusing foreigners OF ALTERNATIVE ORIGIN, in our medical establishment, even as I type. AND JUST YOU WAIT TILL THE NIGHT SHIFT COMES ON.

"Mr Obama plans to announce a new levy" .. "Economics editor Paul Mason will be reporting on both stories and asking whether the levy - a massive unilateral shift - is the right approach."

Will Paul mention a Tobin style Tax on financial transactions as one of the most credible alternatives? Surely this is the only real means to address the structural flaws in the financial system (i.e. that much of high finance trading is pernicious and leading the West into ever choppier currency waters).

Its a huge elephant in the room for those with liberal sensibilities, but the quality of care given to my husband by out of hours GP's and then hospital nurses with limited english, cultural communication barriers,and neglect of duties has been directly related to whether they are white middle class, older age (great effective service), or middle aged and overseas (failure to diagnose obvious post surgery infection, mis-communication between drs and nurses not understanding the words for dressings, mis-information - a nurse lied to me telling me my husbands op was a success when he hadn't even had it yet and one couldn't speak out the numbers for the wards telephone number, and general bad practice - not administering antibiotics when told to, not able to insert a butterfly needle, manipulating a broken knee without anaesthetic). These are not UK university trained staff so how are they able to practice here? Twin this with range of other issues - moving him to a closed ward with infection on it, lost files, and a 12 hour wait for an urgent surgery means i've lost faith with NHS. They could end up killing my husband and I don't know what to do to save him.

How did an EU law designed to ... contribute to ... at the hands of an incompetent...?

Welcome to our world.

believing their own spin?

the daily politics revealed today that councils have more global warming officials than gritters. Peter Hain said the govt had been planning for months for the snow. Must be the the same 'planners' they used for Iraq?

In 1963 a British GP refused to attend a call to a child suffering convulsions with severe tonsilitis.

In 1966 a British dentist, distracted whilst talking to his british dental nurse, put the drill through a patient's(child) face.

In 1978 a British GP told a man complaining of severe back pain that it was caused by 'his age and occupation'. 6 months later, that 47 year old mechanic died of bone cancer.

There is MORE that is rotten in our health care services than the birth place of those delivering the service.

Out of hours care is a minefield.

The lack of communication between those delivering diagnosis, mediaction and other services is abominal.

The growth in services being offered on the high street, where little or NO past history or family records are available, is woeful.

This is the Tip of the Iceberg.

Hope to be home to catch this report later.

BUT THERE IS A DIFFERENCE (#7)

We don't hesitate to complain about the white 'indigenes'. . .

#3 Brossen

Great video: "Back of the net!"

"Web of debt" is currently sitting in my in-tray, but as a general intro to the themes of the book, the following video was quite interesting:

All GP records are now computerised - so it is easy to check up on a patient's medical history, and a great number of hospitals also have access to these records. The out-of-hours doctors should be given access to each patient's medical records before advising/visiting the patient, as they normally are not the patient's family doctor. This would lead to a decrease in misdiagnosis.

Although there is a free movement of goods and people within the EU, in certain areas, such as medicine, the UK should adopt the US system of registration, whereby a doctor is only able to practice medicine if they have passed the exams of the state. In this case, each member state of the EU should have its own entrance exam, and only after passing the exam should the doctor of a neighbouring EU state be allowed to practice in the UK. (Those outside the EU already have to sit exams in order to practice here). That way, at least we are able to know whether a doctor is up to standard or not.

DOES IMPOSITION ON A PATIENT COUNT AS DISCRIMINATION?

This is not from the Lisbon Treaty, but that was just a bit of tidying up . . .

ARTICLE 21
NON-DISCRIMINATION
________________________________________
1. Any discrimination based on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation shall be prohibited.
2. Within the scope of application of the Treaty establishing the European Community and of the Treaty on European Union, and without prejudice to the special provisions of those Treaties, any discrimination on grounds of nationality shall be prohibited.
________________________________________

....Any discrimination based on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation shall be prohibited...

to forbid discrimination is a pig philosophy. the creation of a pig state. it denies there is anything called the good and that things can be ranked as to how much good they have in them. so one cannot say anything is good nor that anything is better than anything else which is moral relativism and nihilism. One might even say to ask that someone be qualified in what they do is 'discrimination'.[against those who have no qualifications]. To ask an entrance fee is discrimination against those who have no money etc.

i remember a union rep explaining the problems of labour. if 2 people [one big and strong the other small and weak] are stacking bags of wheat on a lorry and the big strong one stacks more bags should he be paid more just because his size allows him to stack more? or would paying him more discriminate against someone born small and weak?

WHAT'S GOING DOWN

This is a first news exclusive if the mods let it be posted.

Either Scotland has declared independence or something is going down re Scottish Television.

Right we can get 91Èȱ¬ programmes for Scotland. But commercial channels have just dropped the ITN news and as at time of writing subsequent UK networked programmes.

This is going to potentially big news. Either Scotland is now an independent country or commercial Scottish commercial TV has been dropped from the UK network.

Don't know what has gone one- but something has.

At 10.50 the 10pm news has just appeared in Scotland. ??

barrie #1,8,11

THOU SHALT NOT DISCRIMINATE (LISBON COMMANDMENT No 21)

Just prior to last night's NN was a 91Èȱ¬ feature about moslem women taking driving tests. Nothing wrong with that - although their menfolk may disapprove, and it was rather disturbing to see that some insisted on driving in full burka gear, and would obviously insist on instructors from their own faith.

However, the programme mentioned that many moslem's could not pass the theory section due to lack of knowledge of English, although they had lived in UK for several years, so the test now has to be printed in several languages. Presumably this is to meet the Article 21 legislation banning any form of discrimination.

How is this reconciled with the government's policy of requiring social integration, and the award of British Citizenship? The logical outcome of non-discrimination on the grounds of language will be ghetto-isation, or all road and street signs having to be displayed multi-languaged.

I was brought up with the principal that Ignorance of the Law is no Excuse but we may now have to promulgate all legislation in all languages to avoid appeals under Article 21.

Iam absolutely delighted to see the Health Minister go GaGa in response to Jeremy's question: ' Why are the EU doctors not subjected to the same controls as non-EU trained doctors?' The few that I have come across are appauling in communication skills in English as well as their clinical ability. Nobody knows with certainity what these doctors were doing in the EU countries before they arrived in UK. The methods of deriving equivalency of qualifications is unclear. The training that these doctors have received are severely short of UK standards or for that matter compared with trained doctors from non-EU countries.

I am a Consultant and also worked in a managerial capacity in the NHS monitoring appointments. When I questioned the communication skills of some of these doctors and recommended to higher management that they be referred to clear the IELTS English exam, I was ignored and the matter swept under the carpet to abide by rule 6(2)B agreement. Imagine, the consequences of a report issued by these doctors could be grossly misinterpreted by a UK doctor risking patient lives.

Coming to training issues, UK doctors go through a rigorous process to gain skills in their speciality, whereas I am not entirely convinced that EU doctors go through similar training. In some specialities doctors are issued Certification based on 3-week or 4-week courses that they can attend. The certification of supervised training is not as robust as one would expect in the UK or non-EU countries.

I have come across some EU doctors who took up Consultant posts in the UK because they have been through psychiatic illness in their country and faced difficulty with their colleagues in their country.

Time to affirm our position in the UK and ensure that the quality of our patient care is not compromised by political agreements that accept suboptimal standards. Similarly UK doctors going into work in the EU should follow control standards that may apply in that respective country.

IELTS should be a minimum requirement.

Tip; if you get ill out of hours, call an ambulance and get yourself to hospital, on no account ring the out of hours service, no bounds who will turn up, even an unqualified doctor. At least in hospital there'll be some sensible nurses and several doctors, so they shouldn't manage to kill you.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Well finally NN has someone on who knows what they are talking about, I refer to Janet Tavakoli of course, though Jeremy didn't bother to ask about the pervasive fraud she referred to, so it might have gone over the casual watchers head, here is a link for those who are interested-



as for her references to AIG and Goldman she sets it out here-



The terms of AIGs bailout will only be released in 2018.

BTW why is it me posting this information when the web team should be all over this, and Jeremy should have asked her to explain in some detail as she is one of those who has been digging through the details of what has been going on with the banks.

As for the $120BN proposed tax, that is 0.5% of the $23.7TN (yes, Trillion) that the US government is backing the banks with.

Also 9.2% of prime (ie regular not subprime) loans in the US are behind in payments, triple what they were last year and Moodys is forecasting that the economies of Greece and Portugal face a slow lingering death.

Unfortunately the global economic situation is now spiraling out of control and no one has proposed any realistic ways of getting us out of it.

I would tend to agree with one of the comments above that the skills of a vast majority of the EU doctors are suboptimal in comparison with UK -CCST requirements. To add to the problem, their language barrier is larger and wider than some of the non-EU country doctors.

The Cambridge case is just the tip of the iceberg. I could be easily persuaded to believe there are a lot more Ubani's in the system who are enduring due to weak control measures for EU doctors.

I do think a basic medical entrance test should be instituted and this should be easy enough for them to clear if they are trained to a good standard. Oh yes! a English test definitely.... Yes. Have you heard of secretaries amending EU consultant doctors reports for grammatical errors ? I have.

Outstanding interview by Jeremy with the Health Minister, Mike O'Brien. The Minister failed to give a satisfactory answer to why EU doctors should not be subject to an entrance exam, just like non-EU doctors, such as Americans/Canadians/Australians etc. If anything, US standards in medicine are the one of the highest in the world, yet they have to have to sit an entrance exam. Surely, patient safety should be of utmost importance over mere politeness with Member States?

Excellent report by Matt too :o)

@ Ecolizzy #17 - couldn't agree more!

Also wanted to add Paul did a very interesting report with a brilliant follow-up debate by Jeremy with Vince Cable & Janet Tavakoli. Vince Cable, wrongly, thought that Jeremy seemed disappointed that both experts were in agreement!

Yet another Newsnight non-discussion about the future of world finance and how the taxpayers are going to be able to get their money back. Was Vince Cable the best you could do, perhaps obviously working under party orders not to mention any possible version of the Tobin Tax. After all, all three main parties are almost certainly seeking heavy funding from the Corporate Nazi stock market parasites in the run up to the election. It wasn't made clear whether Labour or the Tories had been asked to provide a spokesperson for said discussion, perhaps they were just " practicing the art of not being seen " in the true " Monty Python's Flying Circus " tradition of British Politics these days ?

TAVAKOLI CLARITY - NEWSNIGHT INANITY (#19)

I suppose Puppet Paxo was only obeying orders when he chopped the lady's following point. No jargon, no airs and graces, eyebrows parked - she was a joy to listen to AND BE INFORMED.

Thanks for the links turbojerry. I am at a loss to understand what motivates programme-makers. They just seem 'happy to be there'.

Incidentally, the quake was reported as due to the plates 'colliding' - very misleading of the Beeb.

DON'T KNOCK THE CABLE (#23)

It has just been reported (by scientists, who are always the last to know) that the brain of any bloke confronted by an attractive woman TURNS TO MUSH.

Nobody has yet commented on the ridiculous state of affairs that we need doctors from the EU at all to cover our out of hours service! Don't you all think that is stark raving bonkers? Flying someone over from Germany or France or Poland to sevice our NHS, it's absolutely crazy. And what is the enormous cost of this service, it must be mind boggling.

As most of our NHS now speak Manglish, I'm sure most people here can get by on not understanding their doctors, but perhaps other NHS staff can't. Why oh why are we in such a mess, our NHS used to be the envy of the world, now we can't seem to manage anything. Too many managers and not enough consultants?!!!

I believe the labour government did start this problem, probably from an edict emmitted by Europe, and of course we always follow the letter of what we are ordered by the EU, many EU countries don't! This started when their was a new GP contract, they were paid £120,000 a year and no out of hours work, wonderful contract, more money, less work, not many can achieve that. Except perhaps bankers.

The government complain that too many people are calling out emergency services, can you wonder at it without a GP in sight, when you most need them.

I think most people here would agree with this....



Someone actually talking about putting gravitas back into the 91Èȱ¬! Yippee

I keep hearing and reading that Greece, Portugal and Spain, (not to say ours) economy is failing, how long before the disintigration of the EU then.

Roger Thomas @ 14
ITV1 in the UK was showing the Liverpool V Reading FA Cup replay which went to extra time and so shunted the News back by 40 mins.
I feel sorry for the news staff who've just to got hang around for that time.

WHY THINK 'TANK' WHEN THE NN BLOG THINKS BETTER? (#26-7-8)

Good moaning Lizzy! I have a feeling (as posted before) that the juvenile fixation on FAIRNESS coupled with the Westminster malaise of PARTY POLITICS led to daftnesses such as: "I DON'T SEE COLOUR" (and all the other in-yer-face invisible differences). At the same time (related?) we moved into the age of bullying, wherein anyone who ADMITTED they see colour or can't understand Manglish etc, was (is) a target for SHOCKED RIGHTEOUSNESS. It's all rather Biblical isn't it! I guess it fed, seamlessly, into the unrealistic EU aspirations.
As you know, politics can make ANYTHING into a 'MINE'S BETTER THAN YOURS' issue - so quasi-fairness escalates without any end point. Do we not now have COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM - FAIRNESS WRIT LARGE AND LUDICROUS?
(In passing, allowing Israel to flout any number of UN censures is, CLEARLY, down to fairness over-swing, engendered by guilt.)

More repetition: Westminster and 91Èȱ¬ (along with our entire culture) need radical overhaul, but juvenile minds (and dogs) don't let go when having fun. Our only hope is to nudge the young onto another route that brings them to wisdom. A job for Balls - it isn't.

I keep hearing a buzzing in my head Lizzy . . .

WISE UP THE YOUNG YES WE CAN

#27
Morning Lizzy
Nice STORY - but sadly TALKING about something is a chasm away from DOING something.

My doctor (Scottish well spoken Daniel Craig look a like!) forbids me from holding my breath!

I DIDN'T KNOW YOU COULD GET LUST ON THE NHS! (#31)

Please take this post as shocked affront BYT, I love a chance to bully (don't we all in these days of Weakest Link and X-factor?)

i see the medical report proves the discrimination point where they said to check someone's qualifications or if they can speak english is 'discrimination'. It 's a pig philosophy that results in a pig state. For the nihilist moral relativists who see 'equality' as the highest idea of the mind to deny there is such a thing as the good [which means things can be graded as to how much good is in them] is also 'discrimination? Apparently denying the good is the one discrimination case they allow?

these sort of things like iraq, unlimited immigration, climate justice can only happen because philosophy is ignored while people worship the false gods like 'equality'. How many start from that if the Good is the highest idea of the mind what follows? If they did they would not be trapped in the false beliefs.

Communication skills are of course hugely important when it comes to medical diagnosis. The problems with overseas doctors with limited English is only increased when they work in parts of the countries where there are strong accents and dialects. This is the case where I live. My grandmother spoke in a dialect which even my wife (who was brought up less than 50 miles away) found difficult to understand. When she went into hospital, my mother would often attend to act as "interpretor" (of course, had my grandmother been from overseas, presumably the health board would have provided an interpretor!). There were no problems with the local GPs as even those from outside the area would pick up the dialect over time. There is however a problem with locums who are only in the area for a short time and this is only exacerbated where they have limited English in the first place.

#32
SHOCKED AND AFFRONTED AND BULLIED - AND ALL BEFORE LUNCH

I feel a fever rising.

Penalising the banks

the way to do that is for the state to create a national retail/mortgage bank. this will force the others to keep honest. if other banks are offering wildly different deals then that become a canary that the other banks are working outside the model.

too big to fail should be a thing of the past. why the govt don't think so seems consistent with their previous patterns of failure.

long term prisoners?

given AQ is a mental health problem then they should be given the option of going to places like the saudi de-brainwashing unit.

if you beat a dog with a stick it will bite you. if you treat it well it will be tamed.

THE WARP AND WEFT OF BRITISH CULTURE (off topic)

Alcohol is the weft, and all life is warped by it.

Just watched Bill Bailey on Daily Politics. In general discussion of the scourge of alcohol, they COULD NOT HELP but turn it to humour. There's the problem - its invisibly woven in. The humour is guilt-fed.

Note: Bailey is running a campaign to make kids aware.

HEALTH AND CARE????? A MODERN OXYMORON????

Now, to be a little more serious (and ON topic - ish) having not as yet seen last night’s broadcast, I find the variance in services (both in and out of hours) across the country (the oft quote ‘Post Code Lottery’) a bit of a double edged sword.

Fairness (raised by Jaunty) and ‘economies of scale’, a phrase almost guaranteed to turn me into Violet Elizabeth Bott, the first a cop out against making individual decisions, the latter a 100% money (the bottom line) seem on the surface at least to be at odds with one another.

The larger any organisation/group becomes, the more it applies ‘economies’ through larger, broad brush stroke departments and ‘fair’ values. At the same time, the harder it tries to be fair and equal to all, the further it moves away from its purpose, its designated service/product to its core customers and being fair to anyone.

ONE size simply does NOT fit all. If we insist on paying high salaries to paper pushers, middle managers and policy makers, be that in the NHS, Education, the 91Èȱ¬ etc, the more we should expect them to earn it by making difficult decisions based on local needs and have the courage to uphold those decisions against the inevitable cry of ‘it’s not fair’!

#38
DEVILS AND DEEP BLUE SEAS.

I saw this item on DP.

A BIG Issue, but I would be preapred to give the approach a chance.

Since the message of the dangers has so far failed to be delivered successfull.

Coming from parents, it is watered down to the point of impotence by the fact that most parents themselves appear all too happy (merry?) to partake to the point of oblivion and think it funny (yes, guilt giggles)

ANd Doctors are hardly the most sober(ing) of role models.

And grey suits (politicians) hold no sway over anyone save themselves. Just HOW MANY bars are there in The Palace of Westminster???

So, maybe, just maybe we could try comedy and role models ALL of society (this is NOT a youth problem - it is a society problem) may start to GET IT!!!!

GOING BACK A BIT (#39)

When the Torys served the toffs and money, and Labour fought for the down-trodden masses (and served the unions) for good or ill, each had a standard to nail to the mast - and 'go down' with on occasion.

It occurred to me that the Torys saw the world - rightly - as unfair, and in true public school ethos, were happy to be the winners in that world. I would have liked to see them move towards 'COMPASSIONATE UNFAIRNESS'.

Meanwhile, Labour seemed to be driven by disaffected juveniles (particularly Trade Union officials) with massive spleen. They were going to wreck everything the toffs had, and roll them in the mud. RESULT! Though they never voiced it as a credo, their yearning was for FAIRNESS.

There was a sort of rationale - even integrity - to it all. But Maggie went too far, and Blair - like Trigger's broom - installed himself as a different head, and then changed the handle to 'NEW'. The worker – Old Labour - was stuffed. The Tory's watched, and learned.

And let's not forget the feminists. They too were railing against this naturally unfair world. They wanted to be both odd, and treated fairly, something nature does not do. Allies in the realms of 'odd' were not hard to find, so the feminists put their weight behind the whole gamut.

Now, odd is the new normal and fair is the ultimate (yet unattainable) aspiration. The mature seek the strength to live an unfair life, equably; the immature will ever cry: IT'S NOT FAIR.

Maturity, in this nation, is draining away. WISE UP THE YOUNG.

GERRY ROBINSON DID HOSPITALS - THEN CARE HOMES - WESTMINSTER NEXT?

Just think what Gum-Shoe Gerry would tell us about the dark arts of Westminster! Whipping (witnessed!) the time-consuming divisions, the brown nosing, and much more.

Report back to the proles before voting day, Gerry, and then we can really

SPOIL PARTY GAMES.

Footnote: If our craven MPs will not yield our right to an ABSTAIN box on the voting paper, maybe we should set up a tally OUTSIDE each station.
Or is that illegal? Perhaps I should canvas abstentions when I am walking the streets - I'll give it some thought.

O'Brien is so desperate to bury the incompetent doctor story that he's dug up the 50 year old Thalidimide scandal. He must think journalists are like two year olds who are easily distracted by a new toy. If the government is going to apologise for anything it would be more appropriate to apologise for some disaster they've caused in the past 12 years. They could start by apologising to the servicemen who've lost limbs in their illegal war.

As ever I note that there are the posters whose views on far right race and democracy are partially exposed in their and try to stimulate outrage against liberal ideas and legislation.

They can't go too far as then it becomes obvious what those ideas are - and Hitler and National Socialism are not popular on the door steps. In any event they have always been unable to substantiate their ideas in terms of science or history or anything really. They can't even declare what their views really are openly as they need to morph into new forms to be popular.

Still they hope to whip up discord against Muslims and anybody else of race and tap into any disquiet such as Iraq even though their views are hideous to the vast majority who accept the multi-cultural strengths of the UK and they can't even be in the armed forces.

Thank God they are so ineffectual.

MANGLISH SHE IS SPOKE HERE - VERY GOOD YES?

My brother was admitted to hospital having suffered a left-side stroke.
The psychological trauma was clearly as massive as the physical one, but he was lucid. A brown lady doctor, whom I, personally, could understand through the strangeness of her speech, asked my brother if he had any al-ER-gies (using the same stress as 'allergic'). The look of dismay/anxiety on his face, told all. He thought HIS brain was malfunctioning. I immediately gave him the word with correct emphasis, and he relaxed, saying 'no'.

Decades ago, 'every-day' bread declined to almost inedible. I remember pondering if Quality Bread would appear to fill the vacuum - it did.
Now that just about every service is fragmented and quasi-privatised, will 'Academy Hospitals' emerge, SOME WHERE ONLY RP ENGLISH IS SPOKEN? Choose and book! CHOOSE AND BOOK! But I doubt the 'centre can hold'.

A small example. But of no account? No relevance?

#42 barriesingleton

"Just think what Gum-Shoe Gerry would tell us about the dark arts of Westminster!"

I think Gerry would not agree with your old pal jaded_jean on the benefits of National Socialism where their "dark arts" led to profound costs in deaths and human suffering.

#45 Ah Goodweeping Barrie, I understand exactly what you mean. I've sat by the bedside of my mother, 91, frail, ill, deaf, 4'6" and five stone, and I don't want to be here, in several local hospitals. Then proceeds a wide range of nationalities in front of her, all with different accented manglish. I have to sit and translate almost everything, from whether she wants teeee or cowfffeeee, to where the pa(i)n is. I've also heard some very derogatory remarks about her body and what's wrong with it, she might not be able to hear, but I can. I find the staff also get very irritated as she can't understand them, and is slow, although her brain is functioning brilliantly. There is a thing called culture, the way we think, act and behave, but it's beyound the ken of a lot of our so called carers.

AND GOODWEEPING TO YOU MA-AM!


STRANGER-TRUTH (#47)

Dear Lizzy’s Mum, I’m waving – over here
From snowy Newb’ry, just to say ‘Hello’.
You raised a splendid Daughter by the way;
Just something that I thought you ought to know!

Barrie

PS All your examples I have experienced, and some medical practice to make my last 91Èȱ¬r-hair curl. (:o)

#48 Thank you for your kind ditty Barrie : )