My Life on a Plate

The Waiting Game

Since Sunday there have been plans to move my father to a local community hospital, much closer to home and much more suited to the kind of therapy he needs. Every day he awaits his move and every day we wait for the call informing us about it. It still hasn't arrived. It won't until a bed becomes available. When he was first taken to hospital it was over 36 hours before a bed on a ward could be found for him. Every day since then we have made the twenty mile round trip to visit him, as well as making sure my mum is okay at home. I'm becoming very weary. I do not blame the hospitals and on the whole I have the utmost regard for the nurses caring for patients in very over populated wards.

I'm not very interested in party politics and I'm not particularly a political animal at all. Why should I care about a country that's accepted my taxes but refuses me citizenship or the right to vote and recently charged me almost £300 for the pleasure of returning here after a holiday? Most politicians come over as insincere, hypocritical, uncaring and out for themselves to me, but I may be wrong. I don't feel qualified to judge or pass opinions on something I don't know much about. I care about people, animals, the environment and the future of this planet, but the droning farmyard noises of the Houses of Parliament press my cut off buttons.

But one thing I do know is that Mr Blair claims to have improved our health service beyond recognition and cut waiting lists by half. Who was it said 'there's lies, damned lies and statistics?' If things have improved so much why is my father still waiting for a bed, why is my sister still waiting after four months for an ultrasound scan and why was my friend's mother left unattended in a hospital corridor for six hours after suffering a heart attack at the weekend? A National Health Service it may be, but all workers have paid into this system and prescription costs continue to rise at a staggering rate. Simply, there are too many people, not enough hospitals and nowhere near enough money going towards funding them.

Neither my mother or father have managed to secure a flu jab this year as yet. With the rising panic about 'bird flu,' I suspect every person entitled to an injection has rushed off to the doctors as a result of hearing that bird flu combined with the more common flu virus is deadly. And so a couple in their eighties are left still waiting.

The Government have announced today that every person in the country will be offered a vaccination against bird flu. The only problem is, the vaccine hasn't been formulated yet. The virus may not be arriving in the near future, but I suspect there'll be a few victims before anything gets moving in this country. In the meantime, the media seem intent on throwing people into panic mode.

The following was passed on to me by a friend in my writing class last night. As I said I don't feel strongly about any particular political party, but I did find this amusing.

'The Labour party today announced a change of its emblem from a rose to a condom, as it more accurately reflects Labour’s political stance. A condom allows for inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks and gives you a sense of security while you are being screwed.'