Politicians interfere Too Much In Health Care
Not me that said that, but the view of Dame Ruth Carnall in this article about stroke care in London. This is an extract.
She went on to criticise politicians for interfering too much in health changes.
She said: “Politicians too often reduce complex medical arguments to soundbites.
“Compromise is a mistake but is hard to resist. There is a political aversion to major changes as we’ve seen with the debate over A&Es.”
But then politicians love to interfere and the sooner we get more politicians who are caring people first and politicians second, the better.
The trouble with healthcare is that for serious problems, there just isn’t the money to have super-duper unit for that problem at every hospital. So especially in places like London, cutting the number of units for each speciality is a good thing.
I would also say do we want to go back to the 1950s and 1960s, where there were loads of local general hospitals, which did everything and usually did it in a less than perfect way. I can’t remember anyone in those days, who was totally pleased with the service they got from the local hospitals in Barnet and Enfield. I, myself, have a gammy arm, which may well have been caused by substandard treatment when it was broken by the school bully.
Surely, the wonderful outcome of the Fabrice Muamba case, should be a lesson to everybody. He was probably saved by the absolutely top-class emergency treatment he revived on the pitch by a cardiologist who happened to be in the crowd and a swift removal to a cardiac hospital.
According to Dame Ruth, London now has eight major stroke units and the political delays cost seven hundred lives.
Don’t-Get-Mad-Get-Even-Charities
There has been a sprouting of charities lately, where people who have lost a near and dear one have setup an appropriate charity.
I came across the Miriam Hyman Memorial Trust, some months ago. In the last few days, three more charities of this type, have been the subject of lengthy reports on BBC Television.
It can’t be anything but a good thing, as obviously the money is properly targeted to help write the awful wrong, they have suffered.
A Classic Phish
I received this today, purportedly from Vodafone.
Dear Customer,
You have a pending security update on your Vodafone account to protect you against online theft.
Kindly visit http://www.vodafone.co.uk/new_security/update/account.html
Regards
The Vodafone Team
It’s been well setup, but it does exactly what you think. It points to a fake site and probably steals all of your details.
It actually points to a site called eadecom.net which is registered by Jose Canyellas Vila, who gave details of.
josep@senyal.com
LLuis Companys, 1 8-2 Lleida 25003
It wouldn’t make any difference to me, as I’ve never had any account with Vodafone.
Nice one, Jose. All it meant that was your details are now with the guys with heavy boots and even heavier truncheons. You better get the toilet paper ready. You’re going to need lots of it.
I’m not the first person to find Jose. He’s mentioned on PhishTank.
Two Parcels From Roche
I thought the Softclix device had failed so Roche sent me a new one. I also needed some lancets, so Roche sent me some of those.
They both arrived the same day as expected, but one was by courier and the other by Royal Mail.
You’d think they’d use one company!
Margate’s Roller Coaster
According to news reports, it’s now on English Heritage’s At Risk Register. Read about it in the Telegraph here.
It’s funny, but it’s the only roller coaster I’ve ever been on.
Marie Stopes
Marie Stopes are rather having a problem with opening a branch in Northern Ireland.
I once met a senior guy from the organisation. He told me, that they do a lot of work in the field of sexual health that doesn’t get talked about for good political reasons. It’s probably wise, as some of the work they do is not at all controversial here, but in some parts of the world where they work, their workers would probably be attacked.
The Self-Filling Bath
I am refitting my bathroom in the next few weeks, as the current bath is one of Gerry’s El Cheapo specials, which is actually dangerous to get in and out of. It also has taps that work on a hot-one way, cold the other basis. There’s a video here.
I’m fitting a whirlpool bath and whilst talking to the saleslady, I thought it would be nice to have an self-filling option. I was told she’d never seen one. On the other hand you can get taps that set the temperature.
I searched the Internet and haven’t found a system.
I wonder why not! It’s a dream for a farmer, a builder or someone who works outside in the cold, wet and filth. Imagine you’re just coming to the end of a hard working day and are walking home or just about to get in your vehicle to drive there. You bring up an app on your smart phone or send a text from your Nokia 6310i to tell the bath to get itself ready in fifteen minutes say. It then fills itself to your required level and temperature, a couple of minutes before you get home.
The logic for the self filling bath is overwhelming. Even in my situation here, I would love to be able to set it off and then perhaps finish a post on my blog or a bit of cooking, whilst it was filling. After all,most of us just hang around in the bathroom, whilst waiting for the water to get to the required level and temperature.
It’s not that the technology is at all difficult. In my view, you wouldn’t actually measure the depth of water directly, but probably by weighing the bath with a simple load cell.
It’s just straightforward automation, that’s been around for years.
What I can’t understand, is why it is not commonplace? But then there are other simple pieces of automation that aren’t either.
Would You Disclose Your Name On Zopa?
Or any other financial site, that gave loans?
Zopa allows me to see who I have lent money to, their payment history and a few other details. Normally, the person is only identified by a code name. So you could lend to someone called MickeyMouse or Graham171.
In two cases though, I’ve been able to identify the borrower. One was actually someone, that I knew and the other is a reputable professional living and working in London.
Both incidentally, have had immaculate payment records, so they have nothing to hide.
But I do find it strange that someone would join a financial site and make it possible to identify them.
The Anonymous Widower 