I felt compelled to share this moving post by a new father on the urban75 community boards today, because it chimes with my fears of how desperately precious the NHS is, and how we should all fight to keep it.
Here’s what Bendeus posted:
My tiny, fragile, beautiful daughter was born today – 4lbs 2oz at close to full term. Turns out the cord was poorly supplied with blood, and that this was compromising the viability of the pregnancy.
Spent hours in hospital looking at a fucking monitor that was showing the heart rate dropping below half of what it should be. Torture. Ended up in an emergency Caesarian, with the first sound of a cry about three minutes after she was delivered. Thought we’d lost her.
Over the course of our treatment we were looked after by doctors and nurses from (my guess), Bangladesh, Pakistan, Spain, Poland (?), England, Scotland, S. Africa and, finally in the shape of a wonderful, grafting midwife, the Welsh Valleys .
The care, consideration, information supplied and general extra-mileness of every single last one of them brought a tear to my eye. I owe them the life of my daughter and, quite possibly, Mrs bendeus.
Osborne, Lansley, Cameron, Clegg, would you fuck off now, please, and take your messianic selfishness to hell with you? This institution is really, really something worth fighting for.
Join in with the discussion here: Thanks, NHS.
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I agree- the NHS is fantastic. Which is why it is ringfenced- the only area of the public sector that is- from the spending cuts. Indeed the budget is being increased.
Any idea why all the nurses and doctors came out in protest then?
http://www.urban75.org/photos/protest/nhs-protest-dept-of-health-march-2012.html
Or why the doctors went on strike?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/blog/2012/jun/21/doctors-strike-pensions-live-coverage
The doctors strike was purely a selfish one about pensions and nothing to do with NHS frontline services. Those guys and gals are on £100,000 a year- as far as I am concerned they are very much part of the 1%.
Yes some of them work hard (some don’t) but so do Nurses, Healthcare assistants, Care Home workers Home care workers and so on- many of whom earn a fraction of a doctors wage.