Margate Made Me Feel Better
What do Margate, Biarritz, Felixstowe, Liverpool and Schveningen have in common?
They’ve all made me feel better at various times in my life and it doesn’t take much to realise that they’re all by the sea and can be a bit breezy.
Yesterday, after Margate, I felt a lot better and after getting my shopping at Eastfield on the way home, I took the Overground to Canonbury and walked home, which is something I rarely do from there.
I also slept very well, But as usual, I was awake before five and listening to the radio.
Russia’s Biggest Problem
A few years ago, I read a book called PeopleQuake, which talked about how some countries like Russia have a birthrate that is not enough to sustain the population. Apparently, in Russia, the women didn’t want to have children, as the men might not be there to be a good father.
This article illustrates the problem with Russian men and their drinking and other bad habits. Here’s the first paragraph.
The high number of early deaths in Russia is mainly due to people drinking too much alcohol, particularly vodka, research suggests.
PeopleQuake reckoned that putting the drunk; Boris Yeltsin in charge, was the real problem, as he reversed all of the previous reforms, that were aimed at cutting down on cheap vodka.
The BBC article says this.
In 1985, the then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev drastically cut vodka production and did not allow it to be sold before lunch-time.
Researchers say alcohol consumption fell by around a quarter when the restrictions came in, and so did overall death rates. Then, when communism collapsed, people started drinking more again and the death rates also rose.
So what is Putin doing about improving Russian society? Spending billions on the Sochi games and clamping down on those, who don’t fit the Russian stereotype!
You could also argue, that he doesn’t have a good grasp of foreign policy!
My INR For January 2014
As January is now finished, I can show a graph of my daily INR tests for January 2014.
My INR For January 2014
The average INR for the month was 2.6 with a standard deviation of 0.2. This is well within the range of 2 to 3 and just above the target of 2.5.
I’m using a simple algorithm of 4 mg. normally, with 3 mg. if the INR is above or equal to 2.8 and 5 mg, if it is below or equal to 2.2.
It would be interesting to see if the results with the switch limits set to 2.1 and 2.9, or if a little bit of integral control were to be introduced. As with all control systems, getting everything stable always needs a bit of fine tuning.
Does This Mean I Won’t Get Dementia And Depression?
I have just read an article in The Times describing a diet for your brain.
They also publish the neurologist’s eating rules as down to Dr. David Perlmutter, in a book called Grain Brain.
So what does the diet advocate? A lot of things that I stick to fairly well, like certain fruits, vegetables and oily fish, with possibly a glass of red wine a day. But above all it says avoid gluten!
So far so good!
But then he’s an American from Florida!
Two Blue Plaques In Cable Street
I generally note the blue plaques I pass, as I walk around. This morning, I was on the way to pick something up in the area and passed two.
The Angel Of Cable Street
Hannah Billig seems to have been a remarkable doctor. But then she was awarded a George Medal for courage and bravery in the Blitz and she was called the Angel of Cable Street.
Jack Kid Berg
This plaque to Jack Kid Berg was a hundred metres or so further on. He seemed to have had an good and long life.
I also seem to remember that along with Ted Kid Lewis he was one of my father’s sporting heroes.
Towards The Paperless Society
On the BBC’s News web site today, these are two of their top ten stories; the scrapping of the car tax disc and driving licence records going on-line.
Obviously, these don’t affect me as I don’t have a driving licence or own a car.
But they do show the way that society is going. After all, for many of us, the only contact with our bank or credit card provider is through the Internet.
The one area, where we don’t seem to be going on-line and paperless is healthcare.
The two stories today claim that this paperless route may save us money on car insurance.
So why is healthcare not following the same route?
It doesn’t necessarily mean a loss of privacy and the need to carry a health card, as we do when we travel in Europe, so I’d put it down to a lack of vision of those who run healthcare and the NHS in particular.
How Many Times Do You Go To A & E In A Year?
This story on the BBC’s web site has done a bit of research and here’s the first part.
Some patients are going to A&E units in the UK more than 50 times a year, a BBC investigation shows.
Data from 183 sites obtained under the Freedom of Information Act revealed nearly 12,000 people made more than 10 visits to the same unit in 2012-13.
A small number of those – just over 150 – attended more than 50 times.
I wonder why they needed a Freedom of Information request to get all this information. This sort of information should be shown on the NHS web site, suitably anonimised.
I didn’t go in 2011. but I went once in 2012 and 2013. Last year’s visit was when I damaged my hand and it just wouldn’t stop bleeding.
Surely, if the NHS had a decent joined-up computer system, they could deal with their serial patients better. I am joined up to UCLH, where I went for my hand, as I had been an in-patient and that got me through the hospital a lot quicker.
Do People Prefer A Terrible Local Hospital?
This article from the Express and Star illustrates the problems of reforming local health services.
The problems that existed at Stafford Hospital have been well documented. This report from the BBC is typical of many I’ve seen.
One of the problems with hospitals with bad reputations either in the media or amongst medical professionals, is that no staff will move there, as they want to protect their professional reputation. There is a story about this from the Stoke Sentinel.
But those that want to keep Stafford Hospital going, have no right to use some of the abuse they have against Julie Bailey, who fought valiantly to expose the scandal of poor healthcare at the hospital. It’s probably lucky for Ms. Bailey, that she appears to be white. I suppose that is lucky for her abusers, as otherwise some of the language used would have probably involved a reference to the police.
Coeliacs And Health
I was reading a comment on this post when I had a thought.
Are coeliacs a rather unique health grouping?
Is there another disease, where most diagnosed sufferers eat so healthily?
I suspect too, that if you look at a database of coeliacs, that the level of smoking and drinking is lower than the general population, But I also suspect that applies to a lot of serious diseases like cancer, stroke and heart problems.
There are other factors that come into it too. I see the practice nurse every three months for a B12 injection. I hope they might spot something like a mole turning cancerous. But they always go through a simple how are you routine, whilst performing the procedure.
So analysing a database of coeliacs, you might find the results skewed because of a high proportion of healthy eaters, non-smokers and light drinkers, who see a healthcare professional regularly.
After all, it has been shown for example, that diagnosed coeliacs, who stick to their gluten-free diet have lower levels of cancer than the general population.
Is The NHS A Religion?
David Prior set the cat among the pigeons with his article in the Daily Telegraph, which was entitled, NHS on brink of crisis because it became ‘too powerful’ to criticise. It’s all reported here on the BBC, with this being the opening shot.
The NHS “became too powerful to criticise” despite many patients receiving a “wholly unsatisfactory” service, the health regulator has said.
David Prior told the Daily Telegraph that even the most senior staff were afraid of speaking out.
The Care Quality Commission chairman said the NHS should not be treated as a “national religion” beyond criticism.
You have two camps and I meet both amongst my friends.
One group trust it totally for everything and the others pay for expensive health insurance and except for their GP don’t go near the organisation.
I’m in another category. I don’t have health insurance, but if say I needed surgery immediately, I’d probably pay for itself myself. I would also make sure, I went to the best quack I could find.
I would not have any quick solutions, except that the first thing we must do is to decouple the NHS from national politics. Some NHS Trusts are big enough to be companies, that would be in the FTSE300. So politicians and the great and good, should have nothing to do with them!
Because we let politicians meddle we get some of the disasters we’ve had in the past few years.
I would do a few things to make it better for everybody.
My GP and his team are in my opinion pretty good and up-to-date and work out of well-equipped modern premises. I would make absolutely sure that all GPs were up to scratch and some of the dreadful ones that I know exist should be given marching orders.
Perhaps making it easier to change GPs would help. It’s quite easy here in London, but if you have only one terrible rural practice and don’t drive, what do you do.
We also need a universal health database, that all doctors, hospitals and patients can access.
But we as patients have responsibilities.
If we are overweight, smoke and drink heavily can we rightly affect a First Class service? Suppose you had an expensive car and constantly put dents in it because of bad driving, would you expect your insurance company to pay for the repairs? Probably not! So why should your body be treated any different?
And then there’s the insistence of many, that they want the best treatment from their local hospital and if they need a difficult procedure, they refuse to travel to the next area, to get the best specialist.
Try and close an A & E unit and see what happens. Some years ago, there was a big fuss when the unit at Newmarket was closed. But what happens now? The paramedics get patients to either Addenbrookes or the West Suffolk and you never hear of any complaints now!
Patients if asked, would probably say they needed an Air Ambulance at their local hospital, but we seem to work well with a limited number.
We need better systems that work for all! Not Rolls Royce systems working at a low level, which may well be what some countries have!
The NHS has responsibilities too!
It should have a complaints system that works, so that problems such as we’ve seen in the last year or so are spotted earlier. We have the successful CHIRP system for flying and shipping, So where is the NHS version?
As NHS Trusts are in fact large public companies, with just one shareholder, they should be run as such, responsibly, ethically and to proper financial rules and standards. And just as companies like Blockbuster, Peacocks and Jessops went bust, they should be allowed to fail.
And when they do fail, we get the unedifying spectacle of those who’d criticised say the bad care from their local hospital, fighting to keep it open. They should have started kicking earlier, so that the problems were solved years before.
I used to live near Chase Farm Hospital and my younger sister was actually born there. In the 1950s it was a dreadful hospital and everybody who could, went to London, as the other hospitals in the area weren’t much better. When I read reports of the hospital now, it doesn’t seemed to have improved much. But still the locals fight to keep it open, rather than improve the care in the area.
Should not in London the hospitals in a particular borough be controlled by the local council? London has a wonderful transport system and one of the reasons is that transport is the direct responsibility of the Mayor and they either get it right or voted out.
I can’t think of a reason, why each local authority, shouldn’t control, at least the major hospital in its area. Quality and performance would of course be monitored centrally.
The Anonymous Widower 