Ask An Aussie

Trying to keep these tags anon because part of me is very much “what rock have you been living under” BUT

the NHS is already being sold off piecemeal to private firms- one firm does this, one firm does that, a lot of services are being taken away from the public sector.

Secondly, waiting lists are so long for so called “elective” procedures (like hip replacements for people in so much pain they can’t walk) that people who can afford to do so, are increasingly going private to “jump the queue”- in many cases these people are selling homes or assets to pay.

Autism screenings and other assessments for neurodivergent people: 3 years

Allergy services including immunotherapy: 2.5 years (I’ve just been given my first appointment)

OT: 1 year

Physio: 12-16 weeks (for serious injuries, if it isn’t so bad you can’t work it’ll almost definitely be longer)

Rhinoplasty: 1.5 years (a guy I know broke his nose nearly two years ago and is still waiting)

CAMHS: 6-12 months for referrals, even longer for treatment (some of the kids I work with literally become adults and are no longer eligible in the time it takes for them to be assessed) 

Dental: Don’t even bother, I’ve phoned round every dentist in my county trying to register various LACs and none of them are taking NHS patients because their waiting lists are just too long.

Even going to A + E or urgent treatment with a serious injury will see you waiting 3-4 hours on a busy day. I had to take one of the young people I look after a few weeks ago, and there was a little kid who’d sprained and possibly broken her wrist crying in reception, because she’d been there two hours and hadn’t been offered any pain relief.

And my experiences of the NHS are those of a middle-class person with good literary and communication skills, if I can write a strongly worded letter or apply a bit of extra pressure over the phone I will, so I can’t even imagine how it is if you’re bad at filling out forms, or you can remember large chunks of information about your own medical history, or English isn’t your first language.

Of course our nurses are striking, they’re covering an average of 6-8 beds when they should be covering at most 2-4. And it gets worse when a patient needs 1-to-1. Patients don’t get fed or changed for hours because they can live without it but they can’t live without their medications. Priorities had to shift from patient care to just keeping them alive and if that doesn’t scare you I don’t know what to say.

GPS don’t have the funding and coverage they need either so if anything complex comes in they just refer to the emergency department. We see more and more GP referrals when they should be receiving care in the community as they would have before.

I don’t understand why, 2 years ago, we had lockdowns to prevent this from happening, and the army were drafted in to help, and now it’s like “shrug our shoulders, oh well”.

(Well I do, it’s because Sunak is ideologically against lockdowns and the NHS). 

The Tories literally do not care if people die- including, presumably, the very rich, as there’s no private alternative to A and E in England. And I actually can’t work out what their end game, if any, is here....

Or this: 

Or this: 

You have get your name crossed off (if you don’t want to wear the fine), but you don’t have to make your vote counted if you’re opposed to it. 

And it is so, so easy to vote. Stuck at work or on holidays? That’s fine. Do a postal vote.  Stuck in hospital? That’s fine. They’ll go to you. Stuck in an old people’s home and can’t get around? Again, they’ll go to you. It’s amazing to me that it’s so hard for so many Americans to actually vote. If you make it compulsory, than at least the government is obligated to provide you with the means to vote. 

Our system certainly has some issues still, but I can show up to somewhere nearby, line up for a few minutes (if at all), vote exactly in line with my values (on paper, leaving a paper trail that can be recounted), and then buy a sausage and some home made cupcakes on my way out.

A country’s voting system matters a hell of a lot and every citizen deserves one that makes it easy to vote and results in a government that is representational and accountable.

If you only put 1 vote down for 1 person out of 6, then everyone is equal second. If you number all 6 in your preference order then your vote will count the most.