We have come to think that every minor ailment must be treated and doctors must prescribe. They can no longer tell you to wait a bit and you'll get better.
Because I am 85 and am constantly being told to report chest pains, I duly went to see my GP, after a few days of pain in the left side of my chest, quite sharp sometimes and of course imagined I must have something wrong with my heart.
I was reassured to be told that it is muscle pain, and felt better already. I would have been quite ready to go home and take paracetamol when required, but she insisted I have a cream and codeine! I got the cream at the pharmacy, but refused the codeine, which I consider OTT for the amount of pain I have. Then when I got home I discovered the cream, too, is analgesic only. Just to reduce the pain.
Over-prescribing is happening all the time, and we don't even know the cost of these unnecessary drugs. I know that some patients won't leave the surgery unless they get a prescription, but even when I resisted these were forced upon me. We are really being turned into a nation of softies.
This blog is a plea for common sense in public policy. Our leaders don't seem to have any. They just make daft rules for us to follow. We need to assert our right to use our own good sense instead of ticking boxes which can only say 'yes' or 'no'.
Tuesday 13 November 2012
Wednesday 7 November 2012
University-trained nurses are not "too posh to wash" says Willis Commission. Of course they are.
From my experience of trying to get young people to help me with the garden, I think they are all too posh to get their hands dirty at all. From the youngest age they are taught that it's wrong to get dirty. Their clothes are too nice for them to be allowed to play in the sand. Hospital nurses are no longer expected to do much personal care for patients. When it comes to old people who cannot manage to deal with their own bodily functions a very different kind of carer is needed. He or she is imbued with an understanding and empathy with the elderly, perhaps acquired from their own family experiences, perhaps because they just happen to be born with those particular qualities.
There comes a moment when treatment is no longer useful, or wanted, just to be made comfortable as we await the end. It is perfectly reasonable to want to be allowed to die when life has lost its pleasures and its meaning. Why should we be chivvied out of that acceptance? We need to grow up about death and allow the elderly to express their preference for it. This is not a feeling of defeat, just a feeling that one's life has come to its end and we need to be cared for by somebody who does not find wiping our bum for us disgusting and does not make us feel terribly lonely by refusing to accept that death is near. Those people deserve to be paid just as much as trained nurses. Of course they never can be. But their satisfactions come from something deeper than money.
There comes a moment when treatment is no longer useful, or wanted, just to be made comfortable as we await the end. It is perfectly reasonable to want to be allowed to die when life has lost its pleasures and its meaning. Why should we be chivvied out of that acceptance? We need to grow up about death and allow the elderly to express their preference for it. This is not a feeling of defeat, just a feeling that one's life has come to its end and we need to be cared for by somebody who does not find wiping our bum for us disgusting and does not make us feel terribly lonely by refusing to accept that death is near. Those people deserve to be paid just as much as trained nurses. Of course they never can be. But their satisfactions come from something deeper than money.
Thursday 1 November 2012
Traffic Experiment in Kensington - common sense to be used instead of traffic lights.
It is encouraging so see the success of the removal of all traffic lights, lines on the road and even the
separation of pavement from roadway on a long stretch of Exhibition Road in London. Instead of obeying instructions, drivers, cyclists and pedestrians are expected to use their own good sense and treat each other with respect. It sounds too good to be true, but evidently it is a system increasingly used in continental cities, and accidents are substantially reduced. The area certainly looks much more attractive without all the road signs. It would be great it it could be a pilot scheme not only for traffic but in other areas of our lives. Our brains and common sense are being eroded by nonsensical bureaucratic laws, making us act in a way that goes against all our instincts, e.g. cases where police or firemen are not allowed to put themselves in danger, and a member of the public has to do so instead in order to urgently save a life.
separation of pavement from roadway on a long stretch of Exhibition Road in London. Instead of obeying instructions, drivers, cyclists and pedestrians are expected to use their own good sense and treat each other with respect. It sounds too good to be true, but evidently it is a system increasingly used in continental cities, and accidents are substantially reduced. The area certainly looks much more attractive without all the road signs. It would be great it it could be a pilot scheme not only for traffic but in other areas of our lives. Our brains and common sense are being eroded by nonsensical bureaucratic laws, making us act in a way that goes against all our instincts, e.g. cases where police or firemen are not allowed to put themselves in danger, and a member of the public has to do so instead in order to urgently save a life.
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