O/T:- The NHS strike - for or against?

[upthemaggies]

If you travel almost anywhere in the World you will find people admire the fact that healthcare is provided free of charge when people in the UK need it, regardless of ability to pay.

And yet we're the least healthy nation in the developed world. It's a system that infantilises people and discourages them from taking responsibility for their own health, alcohol in-take in particular which apparently creates the biggest strain of all on NHS resources.

It was a great idea when it was introduced at a time when large swathes of the population were still living in Victorian conditions (see those photographs of bare-foot unwashed malnourished kids on the inner city streets taken as late as the 1960s). It's not fit for purpose in the 21st century however.

[sidders]

And yet we're the least healthy nation in the developed world. It's a system that infantilises people and discourages them from taking responsibility for their own health, alcohol in-take in particular which apparently creates the biggest strain of all on NHS resources.

It was a great idea when it was introduced at a time when large swathes of the population were still living in Victorian conditions (see those photographs of bare-foot unwashed malnourished kids on the inner city streets taken as late as the 1960s). It's not fit for purpose in the 21st century however.

You disappoint me with this post, utm. From what source do you draw your opening statement? My own life survives purely because a wonderful surgeon performed a tricky operation in the nick of time. He told me that he had given me an extra 6 years' life. Well, I'm still here 12 years on.
The nanny state does indeed infantilise some people but balance that against the number whose lives are transformed by access to care and information. In the US my condition would have reduced me to penury purely by chance. I have always eaten sensibly and exercised regularly so my aneurysm wasn't a result of my own carelessness.
Don't throw out the baby etc. The NHS needs reform but its founding principles hold good to this day. I'd rather it had the power to reform itself than be thrown to Tory politicians and their open pockets.