Unfortunately, due to Transportation Secretary ordering a 10% reduction in the number of flights, it is increasingly difficult to self deport.
So wait. I'm in the US now. Does that mean if I stay until my permission expires and then use their app I can pocket a grand tax free AND get a free flight home?
Doubt you’d get a first class trip,back, old chap,
"Let me help. Most of them - units dealing with elderly patients - are fucking useless. Because actually, they don't really care whether the elderly patient survives or not. Not really. Of course there are individuals who are great in the NHS but institutionally perhaps because there is precious little accountability (and then only when something "obvious" has gone wrong), it doesn't matter if your 85-yr old aunt lives or dies. Or is neglected. Or isn't fed properly. Or whose bed isn't changed regularly. Or who is or isn't given the correct medication.
I challenge everyone on PB to ask 10 friends about treatment an elderly relative has received at the hands of the NHS and a significant proportion of them will have shocking stories. But of course the ones that have received great care (and of course plenty do) will write letters, call phone-in programmes and bang saucepans to say how marvellous the NHS is."
And into this system the government proposes to introduce an AD law which will create an obvious, glaring and gigantic conflict of interest and multiple opportunities (pressures even) for its staff to "suggest" or "coerce" (because who will find out - all effective external scrutiny having been removed) such people into suicide to save money for the NHS. For those who think I am exaggerating listen to the answers Stephen Kinnock, the Palliative Care Minister, has been giving to the House of Lords Committee this week. As well as lying about what the Equality Impact Assessment said, his answers are utterly chilling in their lack of humanity for precisely the people @TOPPING is describing and, indeed, people like me with a terminal illness.
Don’t worry.
Some men will be along shortly, to mansplain that the actual things that have happened in Canada and the Netherlands can’t happen.
I could try anger. But I just smiled at the doctors who were dehydrating my father. And politely asked them to put him on a drip for the eleventh time.
"units dealing with elderly patients - are fucking useless. Because actually, they don't really care whether the elderly patient survives or not. Not really. Of course there are individuals who are great in the NHS but institutionally perhaps because there is precious little accountability (and then only when something "obvious" has gone wrong), it doesn't matter if your 85-yr old aunt lives or dies. Or is neglected. Or isn't fed properly. Or whose bed isn't changed regularly. Or who is or isn't given the correct medication."
And the end of the day though why is this up to the institution? Individual nurses deal with individual patients. If they can't be fucking arsed to hydrate them as seems to be often the case these days then they are morally responsible as human beings imho.
Not a new thing. Back a bit there was a scandal when hospital patients were found to be drinking the water from the flower vases. They made sure that wouldn't happen again by forbidding flowers in wards.
Very much the same story with the majority of the wards my father found himself on in the last decade or so of his life. There were exceptions, but the rule was either indifference or outright neglect.
When he was hospitalised with bacteraemia for a couple of months, he simply would not have survived had we not visited him daily to ensure adequate nutrition and treatment.
Some others on the ward didn't.
My Mum in her final weeks had mostly good hospital care, but not always perfect. (My dad and first stepmother died at home, the second stepmother in a home, and all in the US.) My aunt, despite much ill health, continues on and receives excellent care as an outpatient.
My dad lived for quite a long time with dementia, and had various other health episodes, so I got a fair amount of experience.
Elderly patients who don't for whatever reason get visited by family tend also to get neglected by the staff.
That isn't always true, but regular visitors are good for patient morale as well as for keeping up care standards.
Bad care can get normalised very quickly. It is a feature of institutionalisation.
This review article looks at problems of neglect in different care systems in UK, North America, Continental Europe and Scandanavia and South Africa.
Oh, it wasn't always true in my father's case either, but more often than not, it was. It was the basic failure to ensure adequate nutrition and hydration that I found most disturbing.
That's an interesting report, though a bit detached in tone. I only skimmed it, but nowhere, for instance, did I see leadership and effective management discussed.
I have to admit that it's hard to argue with @Cyclefree . While I am fairly strongly in favour of the principle of assisted dying, the practical concerns she raises echo some if my own.
"Let me help. Most of them - units dealing with elderly patients - are fucking useless. Because actually, they don't really care whether the elderly patient survives or not. Not really. Of course there are individuals who are great in the NHS but institutionally perhaps because there is precious little accountability (and then only when something "obvious" has gone wrong), it doesn't matter if your 85-yr old aunt lives or dies. Or is neglected. Or isn't fed properly. Or whose bed isn't changed regularly. Or who is or isn't given the correct medication.
I challenge everyone on PB to ask 10 friends about treatment an elderly relative has received at the hands of the NHS and a significant proportion of them will have shocking stories. But of course the ones that have received great care (and of course plenty do) will write letters, call phone-in programmes and bang saucepans to say how marvellous the NHS is."
And into this system the government proposes to introduce an AD law which will create an obvious, glaring and gigantic conflict of interest and multiple opportunities (pressures even) for its staff to "suggest" or "coerce" (because who will find out - all effective external scrutiny having been removed) such people into suicide to save money for the NHS. For those who think I am exaggerating listen to the answers Stephen Kinnock, the Palliative Care Minister, has been giving to the House of Lords Committee this week. As well as lying about what the Equality Impact Assessment said, his answers are utterly chilling in their lack of humanity for precisely the people @TOPPING is describing and, indeed, people like me with a terminal illness.
Don’t worry.
Some men will be along shortly, to mansplain that the actual things that have happened in Canada and the Netherlands can’t happen.
I could try anger. But I just smiled at the doctors who were dehydrating my father. And politely asked them to put him on a drip for the eleventh time.
"units dealing with elderly patients - are fucking useless. Because actually, they don't really care whether the elderly patient survives or not. Not really. Of course there are individuals who are great in the NHS but institutionally perhaps because there is precious little accountability (and then only when something "obvious" has gone wrong), it doesn't matter if your 85-yr old aunt lives or dies. Or is neglected. Or isn't fed properly. Or whose bed isn't changed regularly. Or who is or isn't given the correct medication."
And the end of the day though why is this up to the institution? Individual nurses deal with individual patients. If they can't be fucking arsed to hydrate them as seems to be often the case these days then they are morally responsible as human beings imho.
Not a new thing. Back a bit there was a scandal when hospital patients were found to be drinking the water from the flower vases. They made sure that wouldn't happen again by forbidding flowers in wards.
Very much the same story with the majority of the wards my father found himself on in the last decade or so of his life. There were exceptions, but the rule was either indifference or outright neglect.
When he was hospitalised with bacteraemia for a couple of months, he simply would not have survived had we not visited him daily to ensure adequate nutrition and treatment.
Some others on the ward didn't.
My Mum in her final weeks had mostly good hospital care, but not always perfect. (My dad and first stepmother died at home, the second stepmother in a home, and all in the US.) My aunt, despite much ill health, continues on and receives excellent care as an outpatient.
My dad lived for quite a long time with dementia, and had various other health episodes, so I got a fair amount of experience.
Elderly patients who don't for whatever reason get visited by family tend also to get neglected by the staff.
That isn't always true, but regular visitors are good for patient morale as well as for keeping up care standards.
Bad care can get normalised very quickly. It is a feature of institutionalisation.
This review article looks at problems of neglect in different care systems in UK, North America, Continental Europe and Scandanavia and South Africa.
Oh, it wasn't always true in my father's case either, but more often than not, it was. It was the basic failure to ensure adequate nutrition and hydration that I found most disturbing.
That's an interesting report, though a bit detached in tone. I only skimmed it, but nowhere, for instance, did I see leadership and effective management discussed.
I have to admit that it's hard to argue with @Cyclefree . While I am fairly strongly in favour of the principle of assisted dying, the practical concerns she raises echo some if my own.
I am one of the many doctors sceptical to say the least about Assisted Dying. I accept that there are some staff that may abuse it, but I think pressure from avaricious relatives cannot be ignored either.
The problem of neglect and poor nursing and medical care is much wider though, and not unique to the NHS. It is probably much more prevalent in private social care, and is an issue in other healthcare systems too. Neither is it a new phenomenon. Florence Nightingale made her name by exposing poor care at Scutari hospital 170 years ago.
Often there is poor leadership at ward level, and in the same hospital there are often wards that are vastly different in the quality of care, sometimes even adjacent to each other.
"Let me help. Most of them - units dealing with elderly patients - are fucking useless. Because actually, they don't really care whether the elderly patient survives or not. Not really. Of course there are individuals who are great in the NHS but institutionally perhaps because there is precious little accountability (and then only when something "obvious" has gone wrong), it doesn't matter if your 85-yr old aunt lives or dies. Or is neglected. Or isn't fed properly. Or whose bed isn't changed regularly. Or who is or isn't given the correct medication.
I challenge everyone on PB to ask 10 friends about treatment an elderly relative has received at the hands of the NHS and a significant proportion of them will have shocking stories. But of course the ones that have received great care (and of course plenty do) will write letters, call phone-in programmes and bang saucepans to say how marvellous the NHS is."
And into this system the government proposes to introduce an AD law which will create an obvious, glaring and gigantic conflict of interest and multiple opportunities (pressures even) for its staff to "suggest" or "coerce" (because who will find out - all effective external scrutiny having been removed) such people into suicide to save money for the NHS. For those who think I am exaggerating listen to the answers Stephen Kinnock, the Palliative Care Minister, has been giving to the House of Lords Committee this week. As well as lying about what the Equality Impact Assessment said, his answers are utterly chilling in their lack of humanity for precisely the people @TOPPING is describing and, indeed, people like me with a terminal illness.
Don’t worry.
Some men will be along shortly, to mansplain that the actual things that have happened in Canada and the Netherlands can’t happen.
I could try anger. But I just smiled at the doctors who were dehydrating my father. And politely asked them to put him on a drip for the eleventh time.
"units dealing with elderly patients - are fucking useless. Because actually, they don't really care whether the elderly patient survives or not. Not really. Of course there are individuals who are great in the NHS but institutionally perhaps because there is precious little accountability (and then only when something "obvious" has gone wrong), it doesn't matter if your 85-yr old aunt lives or dies. Or is neglected. Or isn't fed properly. Or whose bed isn't changed regularly. Or who is or isn't given the correct medication."
And the end of the day though why is this up to the institution? Individual nurses deal with individual patients. If they can't be fucking arsed to hydrate them as seems to be often the case these days then they are morally responsible as human beings imho.
Not a new thing. Back a bit there was a scandal when hospital patients were found to be drinking the water from the flower vases. They made sure that wouldn't happen again by forbidding flowers in wards.
Very much the same story with the majority of the wards my father found himself on in the last decade or so of his life. There were exceptions, but the rule was either indifference or outright neglect.
When he was hospitalised with bacteraemia for a couple of months, he simply would not have survived had we not visited him daily to ensure adequate nutrition and treatment.
Some others on the ward didn't.
My Mum in her final weeks had mostly good hospital care, but not always perfect. (My dad and first stepmother died at home, the second stepmother in a home, and all in the US.) My aunt, despite much ill health, continues on and receives excellent care as an outpatient.
My dad lived for quite a long time with dementia, and had various other health episodes, so I got a fair amount of experience.
Elderly patients who don't for whatever reason get visited by family tend also to get neglected by the staff.
That isn't always true, but regular visitors are good for patient morale as well as for keeping up care standards.
Bad care can get normalised very quickly. It is a feature of institutionalisation.
This review article looks at problems of neglect in different care systems in UK, North America, Continental Europe and Scandanavia and South Africa.
"Let me help. Most of them - units dealing with elderly patients - are fucking useless. Because actually, they don't really care whether the elderly patient survives or not. Not really. Of course there are individuals who are great in the NHS but institutionally perhaps because there is precious little accountability (and then only when something "obvious" has gone wrong), it doesn't matter if your 85-yr old aunt lives or dies. Or is neglected. Or isn't fed properly. Or whose bed isn't changed regularly. Or who is or isn't given the correct medication.
I challenge everyone on PB to ask 10 friends about treatment an elderly relative has received at the hands of the NHS and a significant proportion of them will have shocking stories. But of course the ones that have received great care (and of course plenty do) will write letters, call phone-in programmes and bang saucepans to say how marvellous the NHS is."
And into this system the government proposes to introduce an AD law which will create an obvious, glaring and gigantic conflict of interest and multiple opportunities (pressures even) for its staff to "suggest" or "coerce" (because who will find out - all effective external scrutiny having been removed) such people into suicide to save money for the NHS. For those who think I am exaggerating listen to the answers Stephen Kinnock, the Palliative Care Minister, has been giving to the House of Lords Committee this week. As well as lying about what the Equality Impact Assessment said, his answers are utterly chilling in their lack of humanity for precisely the people @TOPPING is describing and, indeed, people like me with a terminal illness.
Don’t worry.
Some men will be along shortly, to mansplain that the actual things that have happened in Canada and the Netherlands can’t happen.
I could try anger. But I just smiled at the doctors who were dehydrating my father. And politely asked them to put him on a drip for the eleventh time.
"units dealing with elderly patients - are fucking useless. Because actually, they don't really care whether the elderly patient survives or not. Not really. Of course there are individuals who are great in the NHS but institutionally perhaps because there is precious little accountability (and then only when something "obvious" has gone wrong), it doesn't matter if your 85-yr old aunt lives or dies. Or is neglected. Or isn't fed properly. Or whose bed isn't changed regularly. Or who is or isn't given the correct medication."
And the end of the day though why is this up to the institution? Individual nurses deal with individual patients. If they can't be fucking arsed to hydrate them as seems to be often the case these days then they are morally responsible as human beings imho.
Not a new thing. Back a bit there was a scandal when hospital patients were found to be drinking the water from the flower vases. They made sure that wouldn't happen again by forbidding flowers in wards.
Very much the same story with the majority of the wards my father found himself on in the last decade or so of his life. There were exceptions, but the rule was either indifference or outright neglect.
When he was hospitalised with bacteraemia for a couple of months, he simply would not have survived had we not visited him daily to ensure adequate nutrition and treatment.
Some others on the ward didn't.
My Mum in her final weeks had mostly good hospital care, but not always perfect. (My dad and first stepmother died at home, the second stepmother in a home, and all in the US.) My aunt, despite much ill health, continues on and receives excellent care as an outpatient.
My dad lived for quite a long time with dementia, and had various other health episodes, so I got a fair amount of experience.
Elderly patients who don't for whatever reason get visited by family tend also to get neglected by the staff.
That isn't always true, but regular visitors are good for patient morale as well as for keeping up care standards.
Bad care can get normalised very quickly. It is a feature of institutionalisation.
This review article looks at problems of neglect in different care systems in UK, North America, Continental Europe and Scandanavia and South Africa.
Oh, it wasn't always true in my father's case either, but more often than not, it was. It was the basic failure to ensure adequate nutrition and hydration that I found most disturbing.
That's an interesting report, though a bit detached in tone. I only skimmed it, but nowhere, for instance, did I see leadership and effective management discussed.
I have to admit that it's hard to argue with @Cyclefree . While I am fairly strongly in favour of the principle of assisted dying, the practical concerns she raises echo some if my own.
I am one of the many doctors sceptical to say the least about Assisted Dying. I accept that there are some staff that may abuse it, but I think pressure from avaricious relatives cannot be ignored either.
The problem of neglect and poor nursing and medical care is much wider though, and not unique to the NHS. It is probably much more prevalent in private social care, and is an issue in other healthcare systems too. Neither is it a new phenomenon. Florence Nightingale made her name by exposing poor care at Scutari hospital 170 years ago.
Often there is poor leadership at ward level, and in the same hospital there are often wards that are vastly different in the quality of care, sometimes even adjacent to each other.
That's certainly true from my experience, too. Though the difference is that is a larger Siemens choice in social care; it's more possible to 'shop around' - though again that requires family committed to doing so.
"Let me help. Most of them - units dealing with elderly patients - are fucking useless. Because actually, they don't really care whether the elderly patient survives or not. Not really. Of course there are individuals who are great in the NHS but institutionally perhaps because there is precious little accountability (and then only when something "obvious" has gone wrong), it doesn't matter if your 85-yr old aunt lives or dies. Or is neglected. Or isn't fed properly. Or whose bed isn't changed regularly. Or who is or isn't given the correct medication.
I challenge everyone on PB to ask 10 friends about treatment an elderly relative has received at the hands of the NHS and a significant proportion of them will have shocking stories. But of course the ones that have received great care (and of course plenty do) will write letters, call phone-in programmes and bang saucepans to say how marvellous the NHS is."
And into this system the government proposes to introduce an AD law which will create an obvious, glaring and gigantic conflict of interest and multiple opportunities (pressures even) for its staff to "suggest" or "coerce" (because who will find out - all effective external scrutiny having been removed) such people into suicide to save money for the NHS. For those who think I am exaggerating listen to the answers Stephen Kinnock, the Palliative Care Minister, has been giving to the House of Lords Committee this week. As well as lying about what the Equality Impact Assessment said, his answers are utterly chilling in their lack of humanity for precisely the people @TOPPING is describing and, indeed, people like me with a terminal illness.
Don’t worry.
Some men will be along shortly, to mansplain that the actual things that have happened in Canada and the Netherlands can’t happen.
I could try anger. But I just smiled at the doctors who were dehydrating my father. And politely asked them to put him on a drip for the eleventh time.
"units dealing with elderly patients - are fucking useless. Because actually, they don't really care whether the elderly patient survives or not. Not really. Of course there are individuals who are great in the NHS but institutionally perhaps because there is precious little accountability (and then only when something "obvious" has gone wrong), it doesn't matter if your 85-yr old aunt lives or dies. Or is neglected. Or isn't fed properly. Or whose bed isn't changed regularly. Or who is or isn't given the correct medication."
And the end of the day though why is this up to the institution? Individual nurses deal with individual patients. If they can't be fucking arsed to hydrate them as seems to be often the case these days then they are morally responsible as human beings imho.
Not a new thing. Back a bit there was a scandal when hospital patients were found to be drinking the water from the flower vases. They made sure that wouldn't happen again by forbidding flowers in wards.
Very much the same story with the majority of the wards my father found himself on in the last decade or so of his life. There were exceptions, but the rule was either indifference or outright neglect.
When he was hospitalised with bacteraemia for a couple of months, he simply would not have survived had we not visited him daily to ensure adequate nutrition and treatment.
Some others on the ward didn't.
My Mum in her final weeks had mostly good hospital care, but not always perfect. (My dad and first stepmother died at home, the second stepmother in a home, and all in the US.) My aunt, despite much ill health, continues on and receives excellent care as an outpatient.
My dad lived for quite a long time with dementia, and had various other health episodes, so I got a fair amount of experience.
Elderly patients who don't for whatever reason get visited by family tend also to get neglected by the staff.
That isn't always true, but regular visitors are good for patient morale as well as for keeping up care standards.
Bad care can get normalised very quickly. It is a feature of institutionalisation.
This review article looks at problems of neglect in different care systems in UK, North America, Continental Europe and Scandanavia and South Africa.
Oh, it wasn't always true in my father's case either, but more often than not, it was. It was the basic failure to ensure adequate nutrition and hydration that I found most disturbing.
That's an interesting report, though a bit detached in tone. I only skimmed it, but nowhere, for instance, did I see leadership and effective management discussed.
I have to admit that it's hard to argue with @Cyclefree . While I am fairly strongly in favour of the principle of assisted dying, the practical concerns she raises echo some if my own.
I am one of the many doctors sceptical to say the least about Assisted Dying. I accept that there are some staff that may abuse it, but I think pressure from avaricious relatives cannot be ignored either.
The problem of neglect and poor nursing and medical care is much wider though, and not unique to the NHS. It is probably much more prevalent in private social care, and is an issue in other healthcare systems too. Neither is it a new phenomenon. Florence Nightingale made her name by exposing poor care at Scutari hospital 170 years ago.
Often there is poor leadership at ward level, and in the same hospital there are often wards that are vastly different in the quality of care, sometimes even adjacent to each other.
That's certainly true from my experience, too. Though the difference is that is a larger Siemens choice in social care; it's more possible to 'shop around' - though again that requires family committed to doing so.
I think people get habituated to their environment very quickly. Whether nuses, doctors, prison officers, police, lawyers, social workers, bankers or the armed forces people rapidly adapt to their conditions. That power of adaption is one of our strengths as a species and why we can live in some very hostile environments, but it has its dark side too. It is how people become heartless, cynical, callous and normalise bad behaviour.
We become products of our environment and it takes a fairly strong character to stand against the tide. I think the best defence is wide friendship groups outside that environment in order to recalibrate. In an atomised online world that gets harder each year.
"Let me help. Most of them - units dealing with elderly patients - are fucking useless. Because actually, they don't really care whether the elderly patient survives or not. Not really. Of course there are individuals who are great in the NHS but institutionally perhaps because there is precious little accountability (and then only when something "obvious" has gone wrong), it doesn't matter if your 85-yr old aunt lives or dies. Or is neglected. Or isn't fed properly. Or whose bed isn't changed regularly. Or who is or isn't given the correct medication.
I challenge everyone on PB to ask 10 friends about treatment an elderly relative has received at the hands of the NHS and a significant proportion of them will have shocking stories. But of course the ones that have received great care (and of course plenty do) will write letters, call phone-in programmes and bang saucepans to say how marvellous the NHS is."
And into this system the government proposes to introduce an AD law which will create an obvious, glaring and gigantic conflict of interest and multiple opportunities (pressures even) for its staff to "suggest" or "coerce" (because who will find out - all effective external scrutiny having been removed) such people into suicide to save money for the NHS. For those who think I am exaggerating listen to the answers Stephen Kinnock, the Palliative Care Minister, has been giving to the House of Lords Committee this week. As well as lying about what the Equality Impact Assessment said, his answers are utterly chilling in their lack of humanity for precisely the people @TOPPING is describing and, indeed, people like me with a terminal illness.
Don’t worry.
Some men will be along shortly, to mansplain that the actual things that have happened in Canada and the Netherlands can’t happen.
I could try anger. But I just smiled at the doctors who were dehydrating my father. And politely asked them to put him on a drip for the eleventh time.
"units dealing with elderly patients - are fucking useless. Because actually, they don't really care whether the elderly patient survives or not. Not really. Of course there are individuals who are great in the NHS but institutionally perhaps because there is precious little accountability (and then only when something "obvious" has gone wrong), it doesn't matter if your 85-yr old aunt lives or dies. Or is neglected. Or isn't fed properly. Or whose bed isn't changed regularly. Or who is or isn't given the correct medication."
And the end of the day though why is this up to the institution? Individual nurses deal with individual patients. If they can't be fucking arsed to hydrate them as seems to be often the case these days then they are morally responsible as human beings imho.
Not a new thing. Back a bit there was a scandal when hospital patients were found to be drinking the water from the flower vases. They made sure that wouldn't happen again by forbidding flowers in wards.
Very much the same story with the majority of the wards my father found himself on in the last decade or so of his life. There were exceptions, but the rule was either indifference or outright neglect.
When he was hospitalised with bacteraemia for a couple of months, he simply would not have survived had we not visited him daily to ensure adequate nutrition and treatment.
Some others on the ward didn't.
My Mum in her final weeks had mostly good hospital care, but not always perfect. (My dad and first stepmother died at home, the second stepmother in a home, and all in the US.) My aunt, despite much ill health, continues on and receives excellent care as an outpatient.
My dad lived for quite a long time with dementia, and had various other health episodes, so I got a fair amount of experience.
Elderly patients who don't for whatever reason get visited by family tend also to get neglected by the staff.
That isn't always true, but regular visitors are good for patient morale as well as for keeping up care standards.
Bad care can get normalised very quickly. It is a feature of institutionalisation.
This review article looks at problems of neglect in different care systems in UK, North America, Continental Europe and Scandanavia and South Africa.
Oh, it wasn't always true in my father's case either, but more often than not, it was. It was the basic failure to ensure adequate nutrition and hydration that I found most disturbing.
That's an interesting report, though a bit detached in tone. I only skimmed it, but nowhere, for instance, did I see leadership and effective management discussed.
I have to admit that it's hard to argue with @Cyclefree . While I am fairly strongly in favour of the principle of assisted dying, the practical concerns she raises echo some if my own.
I am one of the many doctors sceptical to say the least about Assisted Dying. I accept that there are some staff that may abuse it, but I think pressure from avaricious relatives cannot be ignored either.
The problem of neglect and poor nursing and medical care is much wider though, and not unique to the NHS. It is probably much more prevalent in private social care, and is an issue in other healthcare systems too. Neither is it a new phenomenon. Florence Nightingale made her name by exposing poor care at Scutari hospital 170 years ago.
Often there is poor leadership at ward level, and in the same hospital there are often wards that are vastly different in the quality of care, sometimes even adjacent to each other.
That's certainly true from my experience, too. Though the difference is that is a larger Siemens choice in social care; it's more possible to 'shop around' - though again that requires family committed to doing so.
I think people get habituated to their environment very quickly. Whether nuses, doctors, prison officers, police, lawyers, social workers, bankers or the armed forces people rapidly adapt to their conditions. That power of adaption is one of our strengths as a species and why we can live in some very hostile environments, but it has its dark side too. It is how people become heartless, cynical, callous and normalise bad behaviour.
We become products of our environment and it takes a fairly strong character to stand against the tide. I think the best defence is wide friendship groups outside that environment in order to recalibrate. In an atomised online world that gets harder each year.
History has plenty of darker episodes that prove the truth of that, and of course we all lived through the early stages of the pandemic and adapted to restrictions and a lifestyle that would have seemed difficult to imagine just a few months earlier.
"Let me help. Most of them - units dealing with elderly patients - are fucking useless. Because actually, they don't really care whether the elderly patient survives or not. Not really. Of course there are individuals who are great in the NHS but institutionally perhaps because there is precious little accountability (and then only when something "obvious" has gone wrong), it doesn't matter if your 85-yr old aunt lives or dies. Or is neglected. Or isn't fed properly. Or whose bed isn't changed regularly. Or who is or isn't given the correct medication.
I challenge everyone on PB to ask 10 friends about treatment an elderly relative has received at the hands of the NHS and a significant proportion of them will have shocking stories. But of course the ones that have received great care (and of course plenty do) will write letters, call phone-in programmes and bang saucepans to say how marvellous the NHS is."
And into this system the government proposes to introduce an AD law which will create an obvious, glaring and gigantic conflict of interest and multiple opportunities (pressures even) for its staff to "suggest" or "coerce" (because who will find out - all effective external scrutiny having been removed) such people into suicide to save money for the NHS. For those who think I am exaggerating listen to the answers Stephen Kinnock, the Palliative Care Minister, has been giving to the House of Lords Committee this week. As well as lying about what the Equality Impact Assessment said, his answers are utterly chilling in their lack of humanity for precisely the people @TOPPING is describing and, indeed, people like me with a terminal illness.
Don’t worry.
Some men will be along shortly, to mansplain that the actual things that have happened in Canada and the Netherlands can’t happen.
I could try anger. But I just smiled at the doctors who were dehydrating my father. And politely asked them to put him on a drip for the eleventh time.
Setting aside the merits or otherwise of the assisted dying argument, why would that be mansplaining ?
Style of explanation…
Sorry to push the point, as it's of considerably less importance than the topic itself, but threadbare argument isn't mansplaining. Though the two things will overlap.
I think Malmesbury was mansplaining the existence of mansplaining to Cyclefree…?
Are you mansplaing how Malmesbury was mansplaining mansplaining?
No. I’m talking to another man, so I can’t be mansplaining. Phew!
That’s making rather a big assumption. Have you confirmed @Nigelb ’s pronouns with him/her/they/ze?
He's in a world of his own; owning the libs is irrelevant when you're in charge and failing.
Trump responds to a question about rising prices and affordability: “The reason why I don't want to talk about affordability is because everybody knows that it's far less expensive under Trump…Karoline, could you discuss that question that was asked and how it was asked in such a fake, disgusting manner by the fake news?” https://x.com/BulwarkOnline/status/1986864594371895648
His mental decline should be the lead story, but nobody will report it
Trump has replaced Biden's portrait in the Whitehouse with a photograph of an auto-pen. With what should the next Democratic President (it might be a while) replace Trump's portrait?
Keep Trump's portrait.
As a warning from history.
They should keep the ballroom.
But never use it.
The whole thing just left to decay as a warning about hubris.
No I am with Rick Wilson on this. The very moment the next Dem President is inaugurated on January 20, XXXX the bulldozers move in. Same goes for the Rose Garden beer garden patio. What comes next? Who cares?
And the disgusting gold gilding of the Oval Office? I'd be happy to go to Home Depot myself and buy a can of emulsion and a brush.
"Let me help. Most of them - units dealing with elderly patients - are fucking useless. Because actually, they don't really care whether the elderly patient survives or not. Not really. Of course there are individuals who are great in the NHS but institutionally perhaps because there is precious little accountability (and then only when something "obvious" has gone wrong), it doesn't matter if your 85-yr old aunt lives or dies. Or is neglected. Or isn't fed properly. Or whose bed isn't changed regularly. Or who is or isn't given the correct medication.
I challenge everyone on PB to ask 10 friends about treatment an elderly relative has received at the hands of the NHS and a significant proportion of them will have shocking stories. But of course the ones that have received great care (and of course plenty do) will write letters, call phone-in programmes and bang saucepans to say how marvellous the NHS is."
And into this system the government proposes to introduce an AD law which will create an obvious, glaring and gigantic conflict of interest and multiple opportunities (pressures even) for its staff to "suggest" or "coerce" (because who will find out - all effective external scrutiny having been removed) such people into suicide to save money for the NHS. For those who think I am exaggerating listen to the answers Stephen Kinnock, the Palliative Care Minister, has been giving to the House of Lords Committee this week. As well as lying about what the Equality Impact Assessment said, his answers are utterly chilling in their lack of humanity for precisely the people @TOPPING is describing and, indeed, people like me with a terminal illness.
Don’t worry.
Some men will be along shortly, to mansplain that the actual things that have happened in Canada and the Netherlands can’t happen.
I could try anger. But I just smiled at the doctors who were dehydrating my father. And politely asked them to put him on a drip for the eleventh time.
"units dealing with elderly patients - are fucking useless. Because actually, they don't really care whether the elderly patient survives or not. Not really. Of course there are individuals who are great in the NHS but institutionally perhaps because there is precious little accountability (and then only when something "obvious" has gone wrong), it doesn't matter if your 85-yr old aunt lives or dies. Or is neglected. Or isn't fed properly. Or whose bed isn't changed regularly. Or who is or isn't given the correct medication."
And the end of the day though why is this up to the institution? Individual nurses deal with individual patients. If they can't be fucking arsed to hydrate them as seems to be often the case these days then they are morally responsible as human beings imho.
Not a new thing. Back a bit there was a scandal when hospital patients were found to be drinking the water from the flower vases. They made sure that wouldn't happen again by forbidding flowers in wards.
Very much the same story with the majority of the wards my father found himself on in the last decade or so of his life. There were exceptions, but the rule was either indifference or outright neglect.
When he was hospitalised with bacteraemia for a couple of months, he simply would not have survived had we not visited him daily to ensure adequate nutrition and treatment.
Some others on the ward didn't.
My Mum in her final weeks had mostly good hospital care, but not always perfect. (My dad and first stepmother died at home, the second stepmother in a home, and all in the US.) My aunt, despite much ill health, continues on and receives excellent care as an outpatient.
My dad lived for quite a long time with dementia, and had various other health episodes, so I got a fair amount of experience.
Elderly patients who don't for whatever reason get visited by family tend also to get neglected by the staff.
That isn't always true, but regular visitors are good for patient morale as well as for keeping up care standards.
Bad care can get normalised very quickly. It is a feature of institutionalisation.
This review article looks at problems of neglect in different care systems in UK, North America, Continental Europe and Scandanavia and South Africa.
Oh, it wasn't always true in my father's case either, but more often than not, it was. It was the basic failure to ensure adequate nutrition and hydration that I found most disturbing.
That's an interesting report, though a bit detached in tone. I only skimmed it, but nowhere, for instance, did I see leadership and effective management discussed.
I have to admit that it's hard to argue with @Cyclefree . While I am fairly strongly in favour of the principle of assisted dying, the practical concerns she raises echo some if my own.
I am one of the many doctors sceptical to say the least about Assisted Dying. I accept that there are some staff that may abuse it, but I think pressure from avaricious relatives cannot be ignored either.
The problem of neglect and poor nursing and medical care is much wider though, and not unique to the NHS. It is probably much more prevalent in private social care, and is an issue in other healthcare systems too. Neither is it a new phenomenon. Florence Nightingale made her name by exposing poor care at Scutari hospital 170 years ago.
Often there is poor leadership at ward level, and in the same hospital there are often wards that are vastly different in the quality of care, sometimes even adjacent to each other.
That's certainly true from my experience, too. Though the difference is that is a larger Siemens choice in social care; it's more possible to 'shop around' - though again that requires family committed to doing so.
I think people get habituated to their environment very quickly. Whether nuses, doctors, prison officers, police, lawyers, social workers, bankers or the armed forces people rapidly adapt to their conditions. That power of adaption is one of our strengths as a species and why we can live in some very hostile environments, but it has its dark side too. It is how people become heartless, cynical, callous and normalise bad behaviour.
We become products of our environment and it takes a fairly strong character to stand against the tide. I think the best defence is wide friendship groups outside that environment in order to recalibrate. In an atomised online world that gets harder each year.
History has plenty of darker episodes that prove the truth of that, and of course we all lived through the early stages of the pandemic and adapted to restrictions and a lifestyle that would have seemed difficult to imagine just a few months earlier.
The good news is that the infection can work both ways- one really good leader can change the culture of an organisation for the better, as can a surprisingly small number of determined saints on the shop floor.
It doesn't happen as often that way, largely because that's what entropy does- a universal tendency to disorder. But also because the incentives often reward bad people for doing bad things. (If you give someone a target to reduce complaints, it's easier to make the complaints process difficult than reduce the causes of complaints.)
He's in a world of his own; owning the libs is irrelevant when you're in charge and failing.
Trump responds to a question about rising prices and affordability: “The reason why I don't want to talk about affordability is because everybody knows that it's far less expensive under Trump…Karoline, could you discuss that question that was asked and how it was asked in such a fake, disgusting manner by the fake news?” https://x.com/BulwarkOnline/status/1986864594371895648
His mental decline should be the lead story, but nobody will report it
Trump has replaced Biden's portrait in the Whitehouse with a photograph of an auto-pen. With what should the next Democratic President (it might be a while) replace Trump's portrait?
Keep Trump's portrait.
As a warning from history.
They should keep the ballroom.
But never use it.
The whole thing just left to decay as a warning about hubris.
No I am with Rick Wilson on this. The very moment the next Dem President is inaugurated on January 20, XXXX the bulldozers move in. Same goes for the Rose Garden beer garden patio. What comes next? Who cares?
And the disgusting gold gilding of the Oval Office? I'd be happy to go to Home Depot myself and buy a can of emulsion and a brush.
Is Nero's Domus Aurea his model. As well as Nero's model of government?
Orban has given Trump - what? A plane? A ballroom? A series of Budapest prostitutes?
A Gunvor arrangement
He’s buying several hundred millions dollars of LNG from the US. Of course it would be very complicated for them to go and buy directly from the market. Far better to have a single agent to do all the buying for you.
And probably easier to set a fixed price so that you can budget appropriately. But to make sure it gets done quickly you should transfer the funds in advance and trust them to deliver the gas in due course
Unfortunately, due to Transportation Secretary ordering a 10% reduction in the number of flights, it is increasingly difficult to self deport.
So wait. I'm in the US now. Does that mean if I stay until my permission expires and then use their app I can pocket a grand tax free AND get a free flight home?
Doubt you’d get a first class trip,back, old chap,
Comments
"In this same interlude it doth befall
That I, one Trump by name, present a wall"
It was the basic failure to ensure adequate nutrition and hydration that I found most disturbing.
That's an interesting report, though a bit detached in tone. I only skimmed it, but nowhere, for instance, did I see leadership and effective management discussed.
I have to admit that it's hard to argue with @Cyclefree . While I am fairly strongly in favour of the principle of assisted dying, the practical concerns she raises echo some if my own.
Greene: Adelita Grijalva should be sworn in
https://x.com/Acyn/status/1986620514476171283
Greene: US ‘may be headed for a recession’
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5595453-recession-warning-marjorie-taylor-greene/
Performative or not, it's still notable that a hard line MAGA character is taking positions so strongly at odds with those of the administration.
The problem of neglect and poor nursing and medical care is much wider though, and not unique to the NHS. It is probably much more prevalent in private social care, and is an issue in other healthcare systems too. Neither is it a new phenomenon. Florence Nightingale made her name by exposing poor care at Scutari hospital 170 years ago.
Often there is poor leadership at ward level, and in the same hospital there are often wards that are vastly different in the quality of care, sometimes even adjacent to each other. No, but it looks interesting. I will add it to my reading list.
Exciting new split in the I Can't Believe It's Not Communism Party: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9wvqk22epyo
£800k is quite a lot. Lucky for them there are so many champagne socialists with filthy capitalist funds to fling about.
Lord of the Rings style map of Wiltshire
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19pnXdvVr8/
Though the difference is that is a larger Siemens choice in social care; it's more possible to 'shop around' - though again that requires family committed to doing so.
We become products of our environment and it takes a fairly strong character to stand against the tide. I think the best defence is wide friendship groups outside that environment in order to recalibrate. In an atomised online world that gets harder each year.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp85dvnkpv4o
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/FantasyWorldMaps
F1: will start musing... difficult to call things but there's an off-chance of a bet. Surprised there's no each way on the sprint, though.
"I am and always have been .......
a Traitor.
And the disgusting gold gilding of the Oval Office? I'd be happy to go to Home Depot myself and buy a can of emulsion and a brush.
It doesn't happen as often that way, largely because that's what entropy does- a universal tendency to disorder. But also because the incentives often reward bad people for doing bad things. (If you give someone a target to reduce complaints, it's easier to make the complaints process difficult than reduce the causes of complaints.)
Walmart’s thanksgiving basket is under $40 vs $55 last year
However in only includes 15 items not 22…
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/11/06/politics/walmart-thanksgiving-trump-fact-check
https://youtu.be/ujKc63JR7BU
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domus_Aurea
He’s buying several hundred millions dollars of LNG from the US. Of course it would be very complicated for them to go and buy directly from the market. Far better to have a single agent to do all the buying for you.
And probably easier to set a fixed price so that you can budget appropriately. But to make sure it gets done quickly you should transfer the funds in advance and trust them to deliver the gas in due course
Subtly different to lying which is telling an untruth.
NEW THREAD