Tuesday 21 April 2015

IS LONDON RACIST AGAINST THE REST OF THE ENGLISH

This is a question i have been asking myself for a long time now as it appears that as living in Cornwall we get very little in the way of services and infrastructure and really the prosperous world ends at Exeter.    Once you pass Exeter there is no Motorway, safe rail service and no well connected airport and some of the lowest wages in the country.   Yes the wages in SE Cornwall are below £14 k on averages for those who work in the area, whilst the averages in London is £28k (more in inner London), yes over double.   Take infrastructure in London the spend £2k per head of population yet in the South West the spend £19 no wonder London is booming and jobs created.   Will this change in the elections, I believe not as when our MPs get to the great city they change, the fight for us outside the M25 stops.  But why should this be, well look at the fact Londons population is 8.3 million of which 37% were not born in this country yep 3 million.  The total for the number of people living but born outside the uk is 7.5 million or 13% of the population a staggering figure.   The population of this country has grown 5 million since 2001 without the corresponding increase in services and infrastructure, no wonder the hospitals, schools and housing suffer with capacity issues.   The NHS relies on foreign workers because the country in the 80s and 90s failed to train the doctors, nurses and dentists to match the known vacancies that the baby boomers would leave vacant.   Most of these come from countries that are is desperate need themselves for the same people with the same skills, yet all we do is throw foreign aid to them costing us .7% of GDP and spent £11.4bn in 2013.   School in many inner cities have students that speak in some instances up to 100 different languages and with so many students with English as their second language you can see why they struggle.    As I have said above housing is now critical for so many people and housing standards for so many are sub standard.   With population growth as it is housing benefits are out of control, a lot of people making a lot of money out of the misery of so many.   Currently the country spends £16.94 billion (2013) supporting housing yet the investment in affordable and social housing does not match this.  In Cornwall housing benefit costs the government £187 million (2013) nearly the same amount as the cuts to local government over the next four years.   Is this the best way to use our taxes which appear to be recycled to those rich property owners?  How many people will be able to afford to purchase a home. the real truth is not many of them and by renting they can't save for a deposit as rents are to high.   A recent survey by Shelter showed that the added cost of renting over a lifetime is £600k to families.  

The government is critical of Education received in many parts saying that our educational standards are not good enough to get our children into work or training.  Yet it is parliament that sets the rules and standards, why keep our youngsters in education until they are 18 get them out in the world with a decent basic education and teach them trades to skill them.  No child should be allowed to not take up a trade, further education and university.  But to penalise them if the do go onto degrees the now pay £9k a year for tuition and many are now coming out with debts of 10s of thousands of pounds.  Simple idea if the country needs Engineers etc if they take those degrees they get the education for free, no doctor or nurse should pay but should be committed to the NHS.  

As i have said in a previous blog during election time we live in a promised land and at present the parties are out bidding themselves for our votes.   I ask you to vote but take care they will change and the party line has more pull then your local needs.

Wednesday 15 April 2015

POLITICIANS NEED MAJOR SURGERY TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENING IN THE NHS

I'm not sure if I am allowed to do this from my hospital bed but to hell with it I'm going to.   Last Sunday (29.3.15) I was admitted to derriford hospital for a double heart bypass operation not something I was looking forward to but something I definitely needed.      On Monday very early I was up showered and dressed in my hospital gown, then the checks begin name, dob address.  Into the pre op room putting in the lines to get the medication into me then Mr Allan the surgeon came in and made sure I was ok with what was happening, I said "yes fine the alternative is worse".   Shortly before eight the world stopped mid sentence, I can't say what happened I was there in body but not mind.    At about three in the afternoon I remember being told everything had gone fine and I was now in the Intensive Care Unit.   The nurse fussed over me and from my drug induced pain relief I remember how she told me exactly what was going on.   My wife and son came to see me and I must have been talking rubbish because one minute I was talking to Rayna the next to my son but they were sat in the same seat.   The drugs are great a taking away the pain but they do strange things to your mind and you see so many funning things.   I had to Stand up and march on the spot, deemed fit I was move into the next room The High Dependency Unit here I was to be until Wednesday morning.   Here again the nurses were lovely they fussed over us made sure we took our meds and i can not speak highly enough of the care these people give. On Wednesday I had the chest drains removed which was painful and this is when they realised i had a chest infection, a very strong course of antiboitics was prescribed.   Although fit enough to go up onto the normal ward "Clearbrook" i didn't feel to good and that night was the worse i have ever experienced.   About three o'clock Thursday morning i was still awake and in great pain but once again the nurses were at my aid and although i did manage a couple of hours sleep i did awake feeling slightly better.   As i felt better i started to notice that the nurses and carers on the ward were very busy all the time.  I also noticed that some of the cleaners did not do a good job and were lack lustre about the way cleaning was done.  As with all wards of this type people came and went so on Friday (Good Friday) there was a change around and three new patients came onto the ward.   H who had diabetes, N who was struggling and had a very fast heart rate (103) and D who had a lung function of 40% and had had a aortic valve replacement.  Although I felt much better i was still suffering with the chest infection and I have to admit I struggled at times.  This was probably the same in all the bays of the ward as a large percentage had been through the same experience as me.    By Saturday morning the problems seemed worse as D struggle with a heart rate of 197 and through the brilliant care of the nurse this was brought under control.   H still had hourly checks for his diabetes whilst N was still not improving, the nurse never stopped and was the same throughout the day.   This is when I started to walk a little and saw the notices below that showed that the nurses were short staffed on both the Saturday and Sunday of easter, no wonder they never stopped.




My question is that with a 50% reduction in staffing levels how can nurses cope with patients that still have great needs after such difficult operations.  In the times of elections clear promises need to be made about the safe staffing levels on our hospital wards, just to bring in expensive temps should not be an option.   I was discharged on Sunday and now at home making a slow recovery.   So what have i learned.

1.   I have the greatest RESPECT for the nurses, carers and doctors at Derriford Hospital they have given me the chance of 15 years of quality life.

2.   Some of the SERCO cleaners are not good enough, except the young Plymouth maid who did the job above and beyond and was such a lovely person.

3.   I am very proud to live in a country that has a NHS that cares for its residents.

4.   Since 2001 there has been a 7/8% increase in population in this country equal to 5 million people, yet there has been no corresponding increase in NHS services.   No wonder the staff and hospitals struggle.

5.   Please support them