“Institutionalising Altruism” – an interesting phrase used by Lord Hennessy in this interview on the BBC this morning. His Lordship holds the view that any changes to how the NHS operates that would mean that the lines of responsibility do not lead back to the Health Secretary are most unwelcome. It’s a perfectly valid view albeit one that I take issue with. However my question is WHY the BBC only chose to allow this singular point of view during the interview slot? Why was no one allowed on to argue that the NHS desperately needs to have responsibilities devolved downwards, away from politicians and towards people trying to make decisions on what patients need? The fact is that Hennessy holds the same view as the BBC – namely that the NHS is good for our health whether we like it or not! Any challenge to the NHS is an indirect challenge to the BBC which is one reason it so defensive of the status quo.
INSTITUTIONALISING ALTRUISM?
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I had no idea that the NHS was responsible to the health secretary. I thought it had crown immunity for the mass murder of the elderly and other vulnerable people. I figured that only the private sector was responsible to him as its regulator – just one MRSA case and it gets into hot water. It’s time Bevan’s butchers are subjected to the same discipline – or do our NHS death camps serve a useful purpose, like keeping down the pension bill so we can pay foreigners benefits?
and another thing, whoresons like Hennessey and the BBC are all on private health insurance, like that other bloodstained hypocrite Bevan.
“Institutionalising altruism” or another be-wigged airhead phrase like “institutional racism” Superficially the words seem to make sense – sound clever, even – but if you think more than two minutes about them are ten pence a kilo baloney. Lord Hennesey appears to have very little understanding of anything but his own expense claims.
The Health Sectretary is responsible for £100bn annual expenditure on the NHS. He and the Treasury expect something back for that, and so they should. He is not otherwise responsible for caring for patients, which is the business of a line of management responsibility and the professional accountability of doctors and nurses.
It never stops Labour shills for trying to blame anything bad that happens in the NHS on evil Tories and their cuts and the luckless Health Secretary personally.
The elderly die, that’s what happens when you get old, get over it. People do not belong in hospital because they are old – there is no cure for being old. Only for some selective forms of illness for which there is reasonble hope of cure, or at least the relief of pain and restoration of function. From experience too many old people (and their relatives, and local authority social services) try to use hospitals as “free hotels”. That is one of the main reasons so many NHS hospitals are broke.
Hospitals are not “death camps”. They are home to a lot of people who are in the process of dying. There is a difference.