With less than a 100 days to the next election we are being bombarded with endless political news and stories. Now I am really interested in politics, world news and all that kind of stuff. I read a number of newspapers...all online of course for free...and a couple of political blogs, but even I find the endless political stories hard work.
Mostly what I object to is the way political parties and the media warp the facts to fit their agenda... there are plenty of 'charities' that are only too happy to do the same! It is interesting to see how the 'left' and 'right' treat the facts at their disposal. In the main and weirdly given all that the media tries to tell us about how the left are morally superior, the left are far keener to lie and distort the facts into unrecognisable shapes than the right. The left also has a tendency to demonise anyone who doesn't totally accept everything they say.
However the main thing about politics that really gets me annoyed is how people seem to acquire their political beliefs as a student and then never modify these beliefs as they change, the world changes, even the parties they support change. It strange, I mean how many people keep the same style of clothes all their life, or listen to the same music or even eat the same food. We all grow and change as we mature and as we come into contact with new experiences. But, no, our political views are never allowed to change as we grow up and our lives change. The number of people I know who will only vote Labour because 'that's what our family always votes'. oh yes and you also live in a back-to-back with outdoor plumbing and wear a flat cap! No you live in a 4 bedroom house and holiday in Tuscany but would never dream of actually using logic when you vote. Its like all the Labour MPs with Trust Funds for their children and tax avoidance advice. Ok you can probably tell my main annoyance is against Labour voters...not actual Labour voters who have real beliefs and understand what they are voting for, just the ones who think it makes them morally superior to vote Labour regardless of their lifestyle.
A classic example of the sort of 'lack of thinking' I am talking about is my dad. Many years ago there was a by election where we lived and my Dad was actually interviewed for an opinion poll. One of the questions he was asked was which Party's campaign do you like the most? Labour. Which Parties policies will benefit you the most? Conservative. And then which party are you voting for? Liberal. To give him his due my Dad thought his answer was messed up which is why he told us all but it does show what's wrong with politics in this country. People don't vote for either for self interest or for what they believe in, instead they vote for some tribal belief in political identities which only exist in their imaginations.
Then there are all the constituencies in which voting is a waste because the same party will get in even if a shop store dummy stood, as long as it wore the correct colour rosette... I live in one of those areas and it sucks because it means we get crap MPs...some Party faithful who needs rewarding and will never vote against the Party line, whatever that is.
As I say I like politics and have opinions, as do my children...a whole other post...but some days I think its just me. Enjoy the next hundred days and lets see what the Election brings us.
Friday 30 January 2015
Tuesday 20 January 2015
Update on the stupidity of the NHS
Having, finally, been to get my Mirena removed all I can say is how does the NHS survive! Six months of appointments and scans, all costing the NHS money, and my Mirena was removed in seconds. All it took was the correct equipment! The tweezers...okay not the technical term...used was narrower than the normal ones used by everyone else and hey presto the Mirena was removed and no hysteroscopy needed. The poor Doctor who saw me was as annoyed as I was by the stupidity of the NHS...why use equipment that doesn't work! Why waste everyone's time over a pair of tweezers that probably cost less than £20, even at the inflated prices the NHS ends up paying.
I could rant on like for some considerable time but it gets repetitive, after all how many times can I say the NHS is a bureaucratic nightmare and really needs massive re organisation and some common sense! It clearly does not need more money as the amount of waste would pay for anything they currently claim is needed.
All big organisations get stuck in their ways and need to re-evaluate their organisational structures every few years to check for problems...I am currently having problems with Royal Mail over a customs payment I have made but which is not registered by them, they are not being helpful!
Anyway I will go for now and come back and rant some more later!
I could rant on like for some considerable time but it gets repetitive, after all how many times can I say the NHS is a bureaucratic nightmare and really needs massive re organisation and some common sense! It clearly does not need more money as the amount of waste would pay for anything they currently claim is needed.
All big organisations get stuck in their ways and need to re-evaluate their organisational structures every few years to check for problems...I am currently having problems with Royal Mail over a customs payment I have made but which is not registered by them, they are not being helpful!
Anyway I will go for now and come back and rant some more later!
Friday 16 January 2015
The delights of the NHS and why I am not surprised it's having problems
After surviving most of life with minimal contact with the NHS over the last 3/4 years I have gained a wide ranging knowledge of the in and outs of all the joys it has to offer.
First we had endless fun when my daughter developed abdominal pain and bleeding when she was 17, initially it was thought to be kidney stones. The hospital was very efficient checking out this but when it was shown to not be kidney stones we were pushed from pillar to post with no specialist prepared to take any responsibility for finding out what the cause was...or helping her deal with the extraordinary levels of pain she was experiencing. We even had one specialist draw us a picture of a kidney...not a good drawing I would have had to do better when I did O Level Biology...to explain that he only dealt with 'this part of the kidney'...yes he seriously did...so my daughters problems were nothing to do with him.
My daughter was treated with indifference, unpleasantness...if she wasn't cured she wanted to ill and she was messing up the hospital, and so on. She admitted to hospital twice so the bleeding could be monitored but nothing was checked either time. I could go on but basically the NHS did not cover itself with glory...one specialist said he was unwilling to do tests to discover where the blood was coming from as the tests would be invasive for a 17 year old. No concerns about leaving her in extreme pain, bleeding, but worries about testing! No though of actually asking what my daughter wanted! After all she was just a patient and therefore not a real person.
Anyway that is just background to my story about why the NHS is a bureaucratic nightmare and is, in my opinion, beyond saving.
I have a Mirena and as I am too old now to need contraception it seemed a good time to get it removed. The story now begins. In July 2014 I had an appointment with the nurse at the GP's practise to remove the coil. She couldn't find the strings in spite of what felt like good rootle around with some very cold tools. I was told |I would be referred to a gynaecologist for it to be removed. I got an appointment for the hospital in October...no rush obviously. The gynaecologist then had another good rootle around to discover...what a shock...that the strings couldn't be found. At this point general farce began.
I then need another appointment at a different hospital to have a scan to check the Mirena was still in situ. This was duly done and I then had to wait some more for another appointment with the gynaecologist to tell me the Mirena was still there and I would need ANOTHER appointment with yet another department to get the thing removed. Talk about a bureaucratic monster! To add to the general mess my next appointment was made to the wrong department and I only discovered this when I turned up! Oh what joy...my next appointment was cancelled on the day I should have gone. No reason given but I wasn't too upset as I was full of cold and every time I coughed I leaked, as old ladies do, so an internal examination wouldn't have been fun. Six months since my initial appointment I am still waiting to get rid of the damn thing.
Heaven only knows what all this messing around has cost the NHS...it won't have been cheap and for what? I am still waiting for what I fondly imagined would be a quick appointment with a scan and the Mirena removed in one go.
It comes as no surprise to hear that the NHS is running out of money...any organisation that can piss away money as fast as they has done over a very minor matter can hardly be considered to be efficient! I am also not surprised to hear they are short of staff...the staff are all doing pointless appointments that achieve nothing, so obviously they have no time to actually, I don't know, treat ill people!
I am having similar problems getting a repeat prescription sorted. I send in the form and its returned saying I need blood tests before I can get the prescription. I give the dates I had the tests done and the date I saw the GP about the results and got my annual 'you should loose weight' lecture. No record of either so I have to waste my time and the GPs time going in to get a repeat prescription I should have had without all the endless messing around! What a total mess...supermarkets are not doing what customers want so are having problems and cutting prices to entice us back. The NHS doesn't do what any of us want and just get money thrown at it and the problems get worse, not good!!
First we had endless fun when my daughter developed abdominal pain and bleeding when she was 17, initially it was thought to be kidney stones. The hospital was very efficient checking out this but when it was shown to not be kidney stones we were pushed from pillar to post with no specialist prepared to take any responsibility for finding out what the cause was...or helping her deal with the extraordinary levels of pain she was experiencing. We even had one specialist draw us a picture of a kidney...not a good drawing I would have had to do better when I did O Level Biology...to explain that he only dealt with 'this part of the kidney'...yes he seriously did...so my daughters problems were nothing to do with him.
My daughter was treated with indifference, unpleasantness...if she wasn't cured she wanted to ill and she was messing up the hospital, and so on. She admitted to hospital twice so the bleeding could be monitored but nothing was checked either time. I could go on but basically the NHS did not cover itself with glory...one specialist said he was unwilling to do tests to discover where the blood was coming from as the tests would be invasive for a 17 year old. No concerns about leaving her in extreme pain, bleeding, but worries about testing! No though of actually asking what my daughter wanted! After all she was just a patient and therefore not a real person.
Anyway that is just background to my story about why the NHS is a bureaucratic nightmare and is, in my opinion, beyond saving.
I have a Mirena and as I am too old now to need contraception it seemed a good time to get it removed. The story now begins. In July 2014 I had an appointment with the nurse at the GP's practise to remove the coil. She couldn't find the strings in spite of what felt like good rootle around with some very cold tools. I was told |I would be referred to a gynaecologist for it to be removed. I got an appointment for the hospital in October...no rush obviously. The gynaecologist then had another good rootle around to discover...what a shock...that the strings couldn't be found. At this point general farce began.
I then need another appointment at a different hospital to have a scan to check the Mirena was still in situ. This was duly done and I then had to wait some more for another appointment with the gynaecologist to tell me the Mirena was still there and I would need ANOTHER appointment with yet another department to get the thing removed. Talk about a bureaucratic monster! To add to the general mess my next appointment was made to the wrong department and I only discovered this when I turned up! Oh what joy...my next appointment was cancelled on the day I should have gone. No reason given but I wasn't too upset as I was full of cold and every time I coughed I leaked, as old ladies do, so an internal examination wouldn't have been fun. Six months since my initial appointment I am still waiting to get rid of the damn thing.
Heaven only knows what all this messing around has cost the NHS...it won't have been cheap and for what? I am still waiting for what I fondly imagined would be a quick appointment with a scan and the Mirena removed in one go.
It comes as no surprise to hear that the NHS is running out of money...any organisation that can piss away money as fast as they has done over a very minor matter can hardly be considered to be efficient! I am also not surprised to hear they are short of staff...the staff are all doing pointless appointments that achieve nothing, so obviously they have no time to actually, I don't know, treat ill people!
I am having similar problems getting a repeat prescription sorted. I send in the form and its returned saying I need blood tests before I can get the prescription. I give the dates I had the tests done and the date I saw the GP about the results and got my annual 'you should loose weight' lecture. No record of either so I have to waste my time and the GPs time going in to get a repeat prescription I should have had without all the endless messing around! What a total mess...supermarkets are not doing what customers want so are having problems and cutting prices to entice us back. The NHS doesn't do what any of us want and just get money thrown at it and the problems get worse, not good!!
Thursday 15 January 2015
Hello and let the ranting begin
Before I begin to rant and generally let off steam let me introduce myself. I have no plans to publicise the blog so if you have found your way here, welcome.
I am a 50something Mum with a chronically ill adult daughter requiring me to be a full time carer, I am sure more information will come over the period of the blog but suffice to say she became ill when she was 17 and went from being a highly independent, active, academic child to being practically bedbound. She deals with it as well as anyone could but its not easy for either of us.
I also have a son who has just started Uni in London. He is having a ball and seems to be doing well. I am so pleased at least one of my children is doing the what he should and leaving home!
I also have a foster child...pretty much adopted as we have had him 10 years and he will stay permanently as he is unlikely to ever be independent...incredibly crap parenting in his early life has left him damaged in many ways. In spite of all that he is an active child who loves sport and has a life enhancing smile. I wouldn't want him to change, though we would all be happier if he could control his behaviour but he thinks, and says, I look beautiful in my painting clothes...what's not to love!
I also have a partner, there is not much to say to introduce him as he will only feature as a rant. He was fine when we first got together but has become a complete prat. I did start ranting about him at this point but decided it could go on for a while and would be better left for another time.
In case you are wondering about the name of the blog let me explain. Obviously life is full of sh*t and there are days I feel we come in for more than our fair share. The other reason is an often expressed complaint by me over the working of my body. You would think after over 50 years my body would know that if I have a size 8 arse its no point producing a size 10 shit and expecting me to squeeze it out without swearing! I also want to know why my body feels shits should come with corners...it seems a strange design to me.
I am find it annoying that on days I am particularly busy my shit decide to play at being shy! I will be overcome by a gripping urge to dash to the loo, I'm well trained and comply only for my shit to decide its now in no rush and 20 minutes later is still thinking about whether it wants to come out of hiding. I then give up and go back to whatever I was doing only to have the same process repeated until the shit, invariably a rabbit dropping, condescends to emerge.
I can also wax lyrical about the delights of piles which bleed and fill the toilet with a dramatic amount of blood...that much blood really wants to be admired by a wider audience than just me but no one is going come and admire a toilet bowl full of blood. The best was a fart with a bleeding pile which left a scattering of tiny drops of blood all over the toilet...the sort of effect you see on TV when someone has been murdered in a particularly dramatic way...but totally wasted as no one wants to admire the artistic way the blood had been scattered.
Anyway, assuming you have managed to read so far without leaving in disgust, you now know why the blog got its name and also why I am needing to resort to blog to express myself.
I am a 50something Mum with a chronically ill adult daughter requiring me to be a full time carer, I am sure more information will come over the period of the blog but suffice to say she became ill when she was 17 and went from being a highly independent, active, academic child to being practically bedbound. She deals with it as well as anyone could but its not easy for either of us.
I also have a son who has just started Uni in London. He is having a ball and seems to be doing well. I am so pleased at least one of my children is doing the what he should and leaving home!
I also have a foster child...pretty much adopted as we have had him 10 years and he will stay permanently as he is unlikely to ever be independent...incredibly crap parenting in his early life has left him damaged in many ways. In spite of all that he is an active child who loves sport and has a life enhancing smile. I wouldn't want him to change, though we would all be happier if he could control his behaviour but he thinks, and says, I look beautiful in my painting clothes...what's not to love!
I also have a partner, there is not much to say to introduce him as he will only feature as a rant. He was fine when we first got together but has become a complete prat. I did start ranting about him at this point but decided it could go on for a while and would be better left for another time.
In case you are wondering about the name of the blog let me explain. Obviously life is full of sh*t and there are days I feel we come in for more than our fair share. The other reason is an often expressed complaint by me over the working of my body. You would think after over 50 years my body would know that if I have a size 8 arse its no point producing a size 10 shit and expecting me to squeeze it out without swearing! I also want to know why my body feels shits should come with corners...it seems a strange design to me.
I am find it annoying that on days I am particularly busy my shit decide to play at being shy! I will be overcome by a gripping urge to dash to the loo, I'm well trained and comply only for my shit to decide its now in no rush and 20 minutes later is still thinking about whether it wants to come out of hiding. I then give up and go back to whatever I was doing only to have the same process repeated until the shit, invariably a rabbit dropping, condescends to emerge.
I can also wax lyrical about the delights of piles which bleed and fill the toilet with a dramatic amount of blood...that much blood really wants to be admired by a wider audience than just me but no one is going come and admire a toilet bowl full of blood. The best was a fart with a bleeding pile which left a scattering of tiny drops of blood all over the toilet...the sort of effect you see on TV when someone has been murdered in a particularly dramatic way...but totally wasted as no one wants to admire the artistic way the blood had been scattered.
Anyway, assuming you have managed to read so far without leaving in disgust, you now know why the blog got its name and also why I am needing to resort to blog to express myself.
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