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Retirement

Hello to anyone who is left looking at these meanderings. It is 3 years since I last posted - about the Scottish Independence Referendum.

So just a short note to tell you I have finally retired - I am now an Ex Nurse.

Still too soon to tell what it is like but I am looking forward to getting over the extended holiday feel of it.

I have said before that I like building period ships so I can hopefully finally get down to doing that and catching up with my reading. I may even do some voluntary work once I find someone or some organisation who wants me. Who knows? I may even take up blogging again!

Freeeeeeeeedom

Hello all, or anyone who is still around. It appears to have been 2 years since I last posted - doesn't time fly?

As you will be aware, there is a referendum coming up in Scotland and in 2 weeks we all get to decide if we want to stay in the union or get rid of the b*****d English.

I have kept my opinions to myself over the last while but we are getting closer to the big day so I thought I would give you my thoughts.

I think Scotland would do well on its own, I think we could handle independence with only a few problems. I believe that the monetary nonsense and membership of the EU will all sort itself out eventually.

The thing is though, I DON'T WANT IT! 

I want to continue as part of the UK. I like England, as I have said before, my wife is English, I have family in England. So it finally came to me today - I will vote no. Not because I don't believe Scotland can make it but because I believe we ARE better together.

Still a muppet.

I see Fabrice Muamba has decided to retire from football after his cardiac arrest earlier this year. I wish him well in the future and hope he can go on to have a long and happy life.

Unfortunately he is still thanking god for saving him "I thank God that I am alive" although in fairness he is also thanking the team who saved him, "I thank God that I am alive and I pay tribute once again to the members of the medical team who never gave up on me."

So he is thanking god for saving him but I don't see anywhere that he is thanking god for giving him his arrest in the first place.
The ability of the religious mind to fail to make any connections to reality never fails to amaze me. So we have to assume that it was a devil or some bad fairy that caused the initial collapse.

Swine Flu Redux

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/768654?src=nldne

Here we go again. Swine flu making a come back? Difference this year it has started off further North so has less distance to go before it becomes international.

Did anyone keep any of the anti virals from last time? All ours went out of date.

Now, where did I put my mask?

Petition

The catholic church doesn't like it's "miracles" debunked. So much so that in this case they have even set the law on someone who has done just that.

Please sign this petition.

Waiting times

Yes, I know you have to pick up 3, or was it 4 children in 10 minutes. I know that you need to be 'somewhere' in an hour. I know that you are meeting your long lost pen pal from Outer Mongolia and the only time you can meet is in the next half hour. I know that you have had nothing to eat for 4 hours - guess what, it is now 5:00 o'clock and I haven't managed to have a toilet break since 10:00 o'clock. Do you have any other sob story that you think will get you seen faster than the people in the waiting room who have been waiting for 2 hours now? Go for it, I have heard them all. Don't try emotional blackmail, stories of cancer and heart problems while tragic and upsetting have nothing to do with your sprained ankle. Telling me you think you 'might' have a seizure is always fun - can you pseudo-seize better than I can diagnose it? Bear in mind I have years of experience of pseudo-seizures. All I will do is embarrass you in front of the waiting room - yes I am a cruel and heartless b*st*rd but I have a very low BS threshold.

Before you think I have a heart of stone, I do have some weak spots - if you are getting married, I will try to get you seen quicker (I'm a grumpy old romantic), also if you are graduating or sitting exams I see these as genuine reasons to jump the queue. Even if you are a tourist and need to catch transport to continue your holiday I will try to accomodate that. But seriously, when you are unemployed telling me that 1 hour is too long to wait is laughable - where else do you have to be?

Wandering around shouting loudly that "It's as well you're not dying" just makes you look a dick as the whole point is that if you are dying or ill or if you are genuinely exanguinating in front of me you will already be on a trolley with us doing our thing to try to stop you.

You can always tell someone who has been in or at a hospital before, they are the ones with the books or kindles or ipads who sit quietly waiting for their turn.

A "miracle"....? No it was science you muppet.

It has been a long time since I posted but this has annoyed me, although when dealing with religion I should be used to stupidity by now. This has really pissed me off. God has protected him and saved his life. Really? I thought it was prompt, effective CPR followed by good ICU/CCU care. Did god put the "zapper" in his chest? No, it was a skilled cardiologist. Did god guide the cardiologists hands? No it was years and years of study and experience.
I'm sure some religious nut will tell met that god put all those people there just for the purpose of saving Muamba. If so why, if he is so special, did he go to the bother of trying to kill him in the first place. I know god is supposed to 'move in a mysterious manner, his wonders to perform' but this is not just mysterious it is completely opaque.
The comments are even more entertaining, apparantly Muamba is a special person. No, he is an overpaid footballer, that is it. He is no better or worse than anyone else.

I wish him well and a full speedy recovery, but to give god the credit for saving him is just nonsense.



Update.

I have twice tried to comment on the Sun's page after the article but surprise, surprise they won't publish what I write. Seems if you cannot say that god or some superior force saved Muamba you are not going to get published.

I am going to say it again; SCIENCE SAVED MUAMBA. His fitness levels, fast effective CPR and the skills, knowledge and experience of the medical team are what has allowed him to be speaking to newspapers today. God does not exist and to allow some imaginary being to be given the credit for this is niave, childish and shows a gross lack of understanding of the world as it is.

Pain

As a parent it is not OK for you to tell me that your child has a high pain threshold and that's why you did not give them analgesia for their fractured ankle/wrist. It is equally not OK to refuse my offer of analgesia for said child while under my care because they are "tough". This is bordering on child abuse.

As an adult you should not tell me in triage that you have (insert major surgical emergency here) that you have severe pain while a) smiling and joking with me, b) have normal vital signs and c) look and sound in normal health. Oh, and asking me to carry your bag that you have carried from the main door of the hospital because "you just can't manage" is just pathetic.

My thanks to Julie at Campaigning for health for this. Although it does not directly affect Scotland I still think it is wrong and privatisation.

Do they think we are mad?

What the hell goes on in an NHS managers mind? First they tell us that jobs in Scotland will be cut including Nursing jobs and now NHS Grampian have come up with this little scheme.
What makes them think that nurses will work a full shift for nothing? We already work extra (unpaid) hours to make sure that everything is complete before we go off shift and I very rarely see anyone getting their time back. So now they decide to make us work another 12 hours unpaid. Never mind that this involves transport costs, childminding costs and any other costs that are involved in going to work. They then play the guilt card, "if you don't do this then nurses will lose their jobs" - you have already told us that nurses are going to lose their jobs anyway you dipshits.
And of course, how many nurses get a break or a full lunch time? How many managers get a full lunchtime?
I wonder though........? Perhaps this is a sneaky way to reduce the pension deficit in the NHS. It is well known that long shifts and no breaks are bad for your health so perhaps they are trying to kill us all off so they don't have to pay us a pension.
As Nurse Anne over at Militant Medical Nurse would no doubt say - Bastards!!

Wuss

I understand that my wife is a bit wary of wasps and bees etc. it's a girly thing and getting rid of them is one of a husbands duties that are taken for granted. Why though does my dog tremble and run out of the room when anything that buzzes flies around? However, what I really, really need answered is why my 30 year old 6 foot 3 inch son runs like a little girl when a wasp or bee enters the kitchen?

This is possibly one of the reasons I have no grandchildren yet!

Rant

A rant this morning, I saw this story on the news last night and immediately started shouting and throwing things at the screen. This man hurt his knee 15 years ago and has not worked since and because he has now won £11 million he will be able to afford to get his knee fixed. This man is a lazy, selfish swine, he could have had an operation on his knee any time from the NHS. He states he is unable to work but can drive a car - if you can drive a car you can work, people in wheelchairs manage to work, people with no legs manage to work. No, this man hurt his knee and decided that he enjoyed sponging off the state and took our money. Sometime over the past 15 years a job that he could do must have come up.
So good luck to you Peter Redkin for winning the money, but at least now you will be one less drain on society.


I have just had a trawl through the internet and I must be wrong about this - the comments after the Daily Mail story about him agree with me. Now that is a worry.

Scissors

Like every nurse I have a pair of scissors. When I worked on the wards they were small and curved and had a little foot to go under bandages - some bugger stole them out of my locker (they also stole my toothpaste, but as it had fallen down the toilet and I had no idea why I still kept it I didn't mind that). When I moved into A&E I obtained a pair of Tuffcuts. I have had a few over the years, I even bought a pair of left-handed ones to see if they were better (they weren't, not their fault, after years of using right handed scissors I could not make the adjustment) and anyway Tuffcuts are left or right hand friendly.
Why am I telling you this? Well over the years I have cut many things - shirts, jackets, trousers,pants, bra's and they are superb at cutting leather boots. I tell the story that they will cut anything and I once saw a doctor open someones chest using them - they had nothing else at that point and the patient would have died otherwise. Today though I excelled myself, today I was cutting someones shirt off and managed to cut through the ECG leads. Think of every time you have ever felt shame and multiply it by 100, I am embarrassed as I type this. The sound of the monitor alarming and then the sudden realisation what you have done and then the comments from colleagues.

It's begun!

Here we go, a week after an election and health boards in Scotland are talking about cutting staff. The numbers given so far add up to 1876 and this does not include all boards, some are only talking about percentages.

Where are these cuts going to be made? You guessed it, Nurses, Midwives and other front line staff. But the good(?) news is that there will be no redundancies but there will be no replacing staff who leave or retire. So despite what the chief executives of the health boards say, more and more will be done by less and less. However, they have promised that services and patients will not suffer.

Does any of this sound familiar? I wrote this piece in January;

Recently we had the horror of Mid Stafford where over 1000 people may have died unnecessarily - why? Well here is a quote which may help point you in the right direction

"Over the years, many clinicians had noticed deterioration in the standards of patient care, which became particularly acute approximately three years ago when major cutbacks were made in staffing numbers. This included a ­savage reduction in the number of nursing staff."

When will they learn?

Hmmm

Be careful what you wish for, you may just get it!

So we have a hung parliament, Brown is desperately trying to hold on to power, Cameron is equally desperately trying to kick him out. Clegg is waiting to see who offers him the best deal. What happens now? As the one and only Conservative MP in Scotland said during his victory speech; "We live in interesting times." Not necessarily a good thing.

As we have only one Conservative MP in Scotland does this mean they have no mandate to rule us if Cameron becomes Prime Minister? Alex Salmond and the SNP think so. A sort of West Lothian Question in reverse. Ah well, time will tell.

One thing is absolutely certain, whoever gets in Scotland is going to suffer, our budget will be cut which means our services will be cut, our NHS will descend into long waits and a poorer service.

Addendum

I would just like to add that I still hope we have a hung parliament tomorrow. If nothing else it will force the politicians to actually do some politics.

Can I recommend the excellent Julie McAnulty at Campaigning for Health for this post

Candidates

Well, I have voted. Have you? If not get out and do it. My personal opinion, voting should be compulsory with a fine for those who don't vote without good reason.
During my training I was working in a locked ward in our local psychiatric hospital and one of the patients asked to vote. Was quite upset when told that he couldn't as he was barred because he was in the hospital. Is this still the case? Are psychiatric inpatients still barred from voting?

My son told me he did not know who to vote for, well in this election I can understand that as there is not a lot to choose between the main parties. The advice I gave him was, if you can't find someone to vote for then vote against someone or something.

Just as an aside, why is it that out of 8 candidates in my constituency 4 of them do not live in the area. One even lives 90 miles away - how can s/he represent me from 90 miles, they have no conception of the issues I live with - stupid.

More waste

I saw an item on the news last night, it said that civil servants were in New Zealand looking at how their parliament worked as they have a permanently hung parliament since they introduced proportional representation. Now why go all that distance and incur all that expense when they could look at any number of local councils in the UK and also look at the Scottish government in Hollyrood? Everything that happens there happens after debate and horse trading between the parties - works for us so why should it not work for the UK as a whole?

Ah well, we will soon see come 7th May.

London V Scotland

As we are going through an election where all parties are talking about cuts to the public sector I thought I would remind you of a post I did in January. In it I said that although Scotland spent more money per head on health services I asked what was wrong with this. I now want to tell you a personal(ish) story.

I have an aunt who has lived in London for years, She is in her late 60's early 70's (I don't like to ask ladies ages) and has needed the NHS a fair bit over the past few years. Recently she has returned to Scotland and of course everything has been transferred with her. We were talking the other day and she was discussing the NHS in our part of the world and my first thought was oh no, what have we done. Turns out it was the exact opposite, she was so impressed with our services, she pointed out that in London if she goes to A&E she waits for hours - despite the 4 hour target - when she goes to our hospital for a clinic appointment she is seen pretty much on time and there is a notice stating "if you have waited 20 minutes past your appointment time come to the desk and let us know". She also feels that up here the consultant she sees is willing and wants do more for her. So all in all a very satisfied patient who is glad that she has come home.


Now, I understand that direct comparisons are difficult and that London has huge problems that we don't but the experience of my family (her daughter and grand daughter) are that in Scotland we are doing it better.

I want to make it absolutely clear that I am in no way getting at London hospitals or the English NHS workers who I am sure are working as best they can with what they have. What I am trying to compare is that if you spend a bit more money and have a higher ratio of doctors and nurses to patients then things can be better


This report in The Telegraph makes for sad(angry) reading, I have commented in other places that management level never seem to be cut, it is always the front line staff who go. It is always nurses, porters, cleaners and now doctors who are cut. How do know when a politician is lying to you? - Their lips are moving.


Before their are more Stafford's, can I remind you of something I wrote in January;

Recently we had the horror of Mid Stafford where over 1000 people may have died unnecessarily - why? Well here is a quote which may help point you in the right direction
"Over the years, many clinicians had noticed deterioration in the standards of patient care, which became particularly acute approximately three years ago when major cutbacks were made in staffing numbers. This included a ­savage reduction in the number of nursing staff."

As Scotland is in charge of it's own NHS then perhaps we can avoid the worst excesses of the Westminster government. But I am not hopeful especially if Westminster cuts the budget.

I would love to see a hung parliament on Friday 7th May with SNP and Plaid Cymru having deciding votes.