#underfunding

I've heard radio adverts recently saying "please think twice before using A&E" "keep A&E for emergencies".

The problem is that the people who go to A&E for a broken nail have no social conscience anyway, and the people who do have a social conscience already use the health service responsibly and will now use it even more cautiously.

Last year my granddad died because he dismissed sudden breathlessness and "didn't want to bother" anyone about it; only 2 days later when he became delirious did my grandma call an ambulance. He had been having a slow heart attack and it was too late, a day later he was gone.

I once met a paramedic and asked him how paramedics feel if you call the ambulance and it turns out to be nothing, for example your "heart attack" is indigestion. He said "I'd rather waste an hour than watch someone die" and had some strong thoughts about how this messaging to "use the NHS responsibly" shifts blame from the underfunded system onto the end users.

the teachers' salaries are low, the supplies are old and poor quality. students are less well prepared for life beyond k-12 education.

when they graduate these students can't get into colleges and if they do manage they can't afford it so they take on crippling debt

so they get stuck in low paying, no degree required jobs with hourly pay

they work as much as physically possible at one or two of these jobs to provide for themselves

they can't afford birth control pills or abortions if there are even clinics nearby. their sex education was poor but if they manage to get condoms, they are of low quality

they have children, make families. Get married or live together. Or are single parents

They work more hours to support their children

They are spending all their time at work to get money to feed their kids, to afford clothes for those kids to wear

so they aren't reading with their kids, they aren't helping with homework questions and driving their kids to extracurricular activities. They don't have much money, so they can't give much to the schools their kids to to

the schools don't have much money, so the teachers' salaries are low and the supplies are old and poor quality. students aren't well prepared for life beyond k-12 education

some of those people, in their time of need, resort to stealing. Some, mentally exhausted by the dead end jobs and poverty they're stuck in, turn to drugs or alcohol for an escape

they end up in prison. Their families are down a provider. They get poorer. Any teenagers end up working to help support the family, and are spending less time in school

A lot of the people stuck in this cycle are those whose families never had a cushion of money. Those who live in areas where everyone is poor. Black and brown people, who when they moved into 'integrated' areas with white people, found those white people running away to other areas and taking their money and resources with them, leaving only the poorest behind.

Black and brown people, whose families started off in poverty in America and consequently couldn't escape

One year ago today we received one of the first media reports about  a “novel coronavirus" outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

10.01.20. Mail Online:

“UK health officials urge travellers to China for New Year celebrations to wash their hands regularly and see a doctor if they get a cough amid outbreak of mysterious virus.”

Public Health England (PHE) said the “risk to travellers is low" and they were not advising people to change their plans.”  We were given this assurance:

“ The “risk to the UK population is very low. The UK has robust arrangements to manage emerging diseases…"

How wrong they were!

We cannot blame PHE for the spread of the virus in the first months of the pandemic, as no one was initially aware of the deadly seriousness of the disease. However, people should be held to account for claiming the UK had “robust arrangements to manage emerging diseases.”

 Only the day before PHE made this  claim,  the BBC carried this headline:

           “ 'Misery' for A&E patients facing record-long waits.”

The BBC went on to reveal that almost 100,000 of the ‘sickest patients’ were forced to wait on trolleys for up to 4 hours, in crowded corridors.  

We now know there was no PPE available when Covid-19 finally took off in Britain, with many health care workers loosing their lives as a result.

After years of Tory chronic under funding, our NHS, already on its knees, was anything but ready to deal with a pandemic.

That’s is why yesterday were   reading headlines like the one below.

09.01.21. Independent:

           “Record death toll as up to 150,000 infected in a day.”