possible to anonymise? DNA Database etc, Indie page 8

[[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Brian Beesley)]

On Tuesday 02 September 2003 10:10, Owen Lewis wrote:
> > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Adrian
> > Midgley
> > 2.  hospitals are mainly too small, actually, for them to be as
> > good as we
> > would like them to be at various things.  Transport has been a less
> > significant limitation on how far away it is reasonable to have the
> > hospital, and the compromise should be steadily tipping toward having a
> > rapid transit to a hospital that has a wide range of people of sufficient
> > sorts.
>
> I know the argument and, it seems to me, it is not complete.

No, it isn't, and can't be until the transport infrastructure is fixed so 
that it is actually possible to move about the country at a reasonable speed 
& without being taxed to oblivion. Sorry, guys, but that means building more 
roads, and ceasing to use private motorists as a money well.
>
> 	-	When a sick lady of 84 is told she must get herself (or be ferried at
> quite unnecessary expense) some 30-40 miles on a weekly basis to have her
> blood sample drawn,  bureaucracy has run mad. This could be done perfectly
> well in her GP's surgery down the road - if he or his nurses was allowed to
> do it. Of course, were she to pay directly for this service, the question
> of a such stupid 'jobs-for-the-boys' arrangement simply would not arise.

Once there was a district nurse service, which was ideally matched to this 
sort of requirement (which is far from unusual - many sick old people cannot 
drive, let alone afford to run a car or use public transport). Whatever 
happened to it? Couldn't train them to fill out forms, I suppose.
>
> The NHS is terminally ill though it may take a long time to die. No
> politician will speak the truth about its state because to articulate it
> would lead to a need to do something about it and to do what may be
> necessary is politically impossible at this time. The rot set in a while
> ago but its stink is not yet quite offensive enough (and, besides, the
> carcass still occasionally moves) to ensure that it is firmly bagged and
> buried.
>
> Did you here the S of S on Today this morning? He said that all is rosy in
> his garden and the any who claim otherwise are knaves or fools; only his
> departmental statistics are to be trusted! He then reeled off a line of
> rosy stats showing how well the department was performing under his tenure.

Spin, spin, spin.... 
>
> The state of the service is insulting. It insults the patients who suffer
> its idiocies and inadequacies. It insults the clinicians who are
> sufficiently dedicated to remain working within it. It insults every
> taxpayer through the wastage of its funding and the inane utterings of its
> Head.

Well, actually, some bits of it do pretty well considering the constraints 
they're working under. I've never ceased to be amazed at the professional 
attitude shown by medical staff of all grades in health centres, small and 
large hospitals.

What I simply cannot understand is the willingness of the health service to 
treat people who aren't even sick (e.g. fertility treatment) when the needs 
of some groups of sick people are so poorly catered for - and when a modern, 
regional A+E "centre of excellence" has to ship patients 40 miles on an 
emergency basis in the middle of the night because they can't even fix a 
simple gum bleed.

Brian Beesley