Grateful for the NHS

It's that once-in-four-years day today. I always felt sorry for the girl at school who only had a birthday every four years, but at least she could lie about her age now - especially on those forms which say "age last birthday". *g* We have an elderly lady in a care home, here in the UK, who is 89 years old - and celebrating her 21st birthday today. How cool is that??

I have lots of good painkillers. And an anti-emetic because one of the painkillers (diclofenac) makes me feel nauseated when I take it. I am feeling slightly out of things but otherwise I'm well. Healing nicely.

God Bless the NHS. (National Health Service). Don't know what we'd do without it. We Brits like to grumble about it, of course, (just like we love to grumble about our weather), but we love it. We wouldn't want to be without it. It looks after us, it's cost-effective (much more so than most others - the WHO says our system is one of the best, in that way, in the developed world), and it's ours. You wouldn't believe how proprietary we Brits can get about things like that - our things - like the NHS, The Last Night of the Proms, Wimbledon, the BBC (currently celebrating 80 years of the World Service).

The current government is trying to destroy the NHS of course, (Conservative governments always do - and in this our government is a Tory government not a coalition). Chiefly because it doesn't make a profit for private industry. And Tories are all about profit for their city friends. But healthcare shouldn't be about profit.

What do they want?? A system like the USA - where the costs are enormous and the name of the game is make a profit, deny treatment, charge huge prices, drive people into bankruptcy, allow people to die??

A couple of blog entries by a US American ex-pat (and excellent author) Fletcher Delancey have reminded me just how lucky we are. (Well, that and the fact that I've had multiple operations on my shoulder and it hasn't cost me a penny at point-of-service). Without a Safety Net and Without a Safety Net, Continued

I am so, so very glad for our safety net. And I wish that my US friends had something more like it.

Stay well people. See you next week. Goodnight and may your God/s go with you.

Ze

BtVS

• Chapter 1 of Summer by Hayley (BuffynFaith.Net).
  
  
• Chapter 7 of Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes by slayertash (BuffynFaith.Net).
  
  Glee
  
• Prologue to Hell is Empty by way_to_the_end (Glee Femslash).
  
  Grey's Anatomy
  
• Part 3 of How We Met by pens_co927 (callie-arizona).
  
  
• Laying Low by gauzepaws (callie-arizona).
  
  Original
  
• Chapter 13E of Intuition by sinjenkai (Saffic).
  
  Rizzoli & Isles
  
• Part 2 (conclusion) of New Perspectives by aturtleback (Rizzoli & Isles LJ).
  
  
• The Big Test by sunsetwriter (Rizzoli & Isles LJ).
  
  Warehouse 13
  
• Chapter 1 of Dear Diary by kendralynora (Meet at Gunpoint).