The 'S' in NHS, I understand, stands for 'service'. We seem to have forgotten this fact recently. It seems to mean serfdom.
During the height of our recent epidemic we were told to lockdown because the government feared that without such drastic actions the NHS would be overwhelmed. We can never know whether or not the decision to shut down 90% of society for six weeks was the reason why the NHS wasn't overwhelmed during the covid epidemic. But we (or most of us) acquiesced because it seemed the sensible thing to do given the dire warnings from expert epidemiologists.
The Tweet above, however, doesn't refer to a crisis situation but to the normal programme of vaccinating more vulnerable people against 'flu. This is a programme that takes place every winter and the reason we make the 'flu jab available is because we believe it protects those vulnerable people, and to a lesser degree, their neighbours from an infection that might kill them. People are not obliged to have a 'flu jab merely encouraged to do so. All-in-all this amounts to a pretty sensible public health programme, the sort of thing good health services might do. But the purpose of the vaccination programme has never been to "protect the NHS".
Here, in those three words, we have a repeated statement that you are servants of the system - you must do these things to protect the system not for your own interest. And as the ex-Tory MP who sent that Tweet responded, there are little heart strings to justify us serving the system - "...don’t (you) want to protect those midwives who helped deliver your grandchildren, or those GPs who will ensure you are kept healthy and well, or those care workers who change your families dressings...".
The slightly patronising tone here is part of the messaging, a sort of subtle authoritarianism, as is the conflation of people who work in the NHS with the service as a whole. How dare people refuse to comply with our instructions, how much damage are they doing to our precious NHS! This is the mindset that underlies so much of the fussbucketry in modern public health. You must stop smoking because it costs the NHS money. Cut out the booze because look at those admissions to hospital that might have a link to drinking. And don't you dare get fat, do you know how much money fat people drain from Our NHS!
Once you accept that interfering in lifestyle choices is justified by the (alleged) cost of those choices to the state-controlled health system, then you have moved from a person being served by the NHS to being a servant of that system. You were always a number on a list, a body on a slab, but now you're expected to change your behaviour to "protect the NHS". We will see a new collection of fussbucketries from public health all justified by the need to control the upward spiralling costs of our (not really very good) NHS. And all the while the good people who work in the NHS will be cast as special, almost saint-like - not because this is true but because by invoking their specialness, the message "don't get fat, think of the NHS" has a human face, you're protecting (in some unspecified way) those angelic wunderkind who serve Our NHS. Do your duty serf, protect Our NHS.
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8 comments:
" the message "don't get fat, think of the NHS" has a human face, you're protecting (in some unspecified way) those angelic wunderkind who serve Our NHS. "
They might care to start this war on fatness with the people who actually work in the NHS. I had to visit A&E this week due to a work related injury, and it was noticeable how many of the (largely female) staff are, shall we say, not exactly slim..........its a case of physician, heal thyself.........
Very well said.
Be careful comments that question whether you should do your duty for the NHS are likely to be viewed with the same opprobrium that questioned whether you should do your duty at Church in the Middle ages. Your blog says some great stuff; you'd have been an absolutely dire MP!
For me the NHS is a Jekyll and Hyde.
On the one side we have those angelic doctors, nurses, and the other front line staff which we all sppreciate.
Then there are the behind the scenes staff.
The incompetent managers, the diversity officers, the bean counters, the lawyers fighting malpractice claims, the car park attenders.
Sometimes you get a glimpse of them in reality programmes.
Twenty or thirty all on over £100 an hour crammed into a meeting to decide if a certain patient, sorry, customer is going to have his life enhanced.
This is meant to demonstrate how cash strapped the NHS is, but all it shows me is how overstaffed they are in certain areas.
Don't you understand, the NHS is the new state religion, replacing the CofE, it will demand complete obedience, in exchange it will instruct you on all the minutiae of your life behaviours and, by the miracle that is religious brainwashing as practiced by 'faiths' the world over, you will subscribe to its every word, promoting it to all non-believers and feel enriched by the experience.
Now get back in your place, you're not there to think for yourself.
Given that:
a) The obese (20 years ago called normal weight) survive encounters with hospital better.
b) Smokers and drinkers have paid eye-watering levels of extra tax which pays for state healthcare so have already more than paid for any extra care.
c) Smokers are statistically less likely to ger Covis anyway.
So it all combines into one reaction to the Turbo-Karens male and female who wish to rune everyone else life - get off your precious high horse and do your bloody job.
One alarming statistic to emerge from the Covid situation is that 20% of infections are caught in hospitals.
If we now expect around 50,000 deaths to occur, then the NHS can be directly blamed for 10,000 of those deaths by their own incompetence at infection control, a rather basic facet of their job one might think.
So why the Hell were all the idiots out clapping every week? May just as well cheer the Grim Reaper.
Two really interesting comments about the NHS staff here: "On the one side we have those angelic doctors, nurses, and the other front line staff", "why the Hell were all the idiots out clapping every week? May just as well cheer the Grim Reaper."
Personally, I'm more inclined toward the latter, although I do think that way of expressing it is a bit unfair, and unnecessarily horrible. I'm more inclined toward the latter, because I do think there is an over sanctifying of the "angelic" front line staff. The NHS is like The Church, where it should be praised and worshipped, but is not beyond criticism; but doctors/nurses etc are like God, beyond reproach.
Front line staff do make mistakes - dismissing them as incompetent and idiots is unfair and over the top. But, they are not saintly. I don't think Doctors and Nurses really care about the patients, as people - they do their job; they follow protocols, guidelines, and make people better. But that is different from actually caring about the patient, as a person. The patient is a means to an end - it is something to be fixed. An angelic staff would not be following guidelines and protocols to fix the patient, but would consider the person before them as an equal, and holistic, whole individual.
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