NHS

As part of the Out to Lunch festival, I went to hear a comedian at, duh, lunchtime, riff on the NHS. He’d been a doctor for 30 years before doing stand up. He was very entertaining and shared some amusing anecdotes. Most of his act was about all the things we can do to be healthier and not rely on the NHS. He told some amazing stories about visiting people in their homes. Elderly people are on so many drugs that they can’t keep them straight. One guy responds by flushing them down the toilet. Another woman pours all the bottles into a bowl and grabs a handful every day. Resulting in all kinds of spikes in her blood pressure, heart rate, etc. He said overmedicating the elderly results in many more NHS visits than would be the case if elderly people weren’t lonely, depressed, and anxious--and thus not in need of pills. So sad.

My sweet friend Ann O’Dwyer bought my ticket so we could go together. She bought tickets for a lot of her friends to attend different events. What a lovely idea. Poor Ann has a flu bug that’s making the rounds, so I took Monica, a friend from choir who designs health care programs in developing countries. She thoroughly enjoyed it and, of course, agreed with everything he said. His parting point was that most European countries spend 10% of GDP on their health systems compared with 8% in the UK. He said more austerity and privatisation will kill the NHS. It is an amazing institution and, if we lose it, shame on the British people for not fighting for what is rightfully theirs. I look at the looming Trump administration and his plans to run a bulldozer through regulations affecting the environment, civil rights, women and I wonder: does democracy just not work? Are people too apathetic? Or has the gerrymandering problem reached the point where democracy simply doesn’t exist?
1-10