You would think that a sensible way to arrange the bed
would be for the larger ones (the humans) to lay down and then the
smaller ones (the canines) arrange themselves around the larger ones,
wouldn’t you?
Pogo came to bed, laid down next to me and started pushing.
Once he’d moved me about a foot or so he shifted over making room for Fudge,
then kept pushing me until he had enough space for himself.
I did try pushing back several times, but in the end it was
easier just to try to sleep on the space I had left.
Over brekkie I had a bowl of muesli which I scoffed whilst
watching an episode of “The Good Place”, then I had a quick look at the
Internet.
Yesterday I’d made a throwaway comment on Facebook
suggesting that the current ongoing world-wide crisis is conclusive proof that
the anti-vaccination nut-cases are totally wrong. This morning I saw that quite
a few people had clicked the “like” button and a few had shared the
comment too. That was nice…
I had a look at my emails. I had a connection suggestion on
LinkedIn. At first sight I would have nothing at all with an “independent
pharmaceutical consultant” but on closer inspection it was someone with
whom I was at school. I clicked the “connect” button only to be told
that the connection request could not be made. Isn’t Linkedin crap? It suggests
endless people with whom you have nothing on common and doesn’t let you connect
with the people you want to.
As I drove to work I listened to the
pundits on the radio who were rather worrying me today.
I rarely blog about work, but today I
will make an exception.
About fifteen years ago there was a far-reaching
investigation into the provision of diagnostic testing in the UK (blood
tests, smear tests, urine tests... all the sort of stuff that I do every day to
which everyone else turns up their noses and says "yuk"), After a
*lot* of (so-called) fact-finding the chap who ran this
investigation announced that the way forward for the UK's diagnostic services was
to close many of the laboratories and to centralise much of the testing. No one
seemed to think it strange that this was completely at odds with what Lord
Darzi was recommending for the rest of the NHS at the same time (i.e.
building up local services at a local level) but what did we who actually
do the job know?
Bearing in mind that many people
involved in doing the jobs that were being centralised weren't high-paid, were
(for the most part) bringing in the family's second wage, and weren't
prepared to relocate, many highly skilled laboratory workers packed it in and
went to work elsewhere. The labs which survived the culls therefore found
themselves with massively increased workloads but with no extra staff to help
with that workload. Effectively the nation made a deliberate decision to shed
skilled staff, close some diagnostic laboratories and massively over-work
others.
Today we see the consequences of that decision...
So...
Do we see if we can get those qualified
and skilled people back into the workforce? Do we try to build up downgraded
hospital laboratories?
No.
It would seem that the way forward is to
open up diagnostic testing to anyone who wants to have a go. And
that's where I get annoyed.
For years diagnostic testing has
operated under the most stringent regulations to ensure the highest possible
quality of results. This isn't protectionist, this is because doing such
testing takes an element of skill and expertise, and the consequences of
getting it wrong are serious (and potentially deadly). Are those
volunteering to "have a go" going to operate to the same
standards as the rest of us? I sincerely hope so, but I can see this being the
thin end of the wedge. How long will it be before the entire medical diagnostic
field is de-skilled and replaced with anyone who fancies wearing a white coat?
And how far will this go? Much of the
NHS's transport system has already been replaced by volunteers. When I spent
much of the night at the local hospital’s A&E department on 14
December 2019 I met a chap who had been waiting for over six hours for a
volunteer to come and drive him home.
When you turn up at an A&E
department next year will you see a physician who has been to medical school
for years, or will you see a St John's Ambulance volunteer who has done a few
evening and weekend courses in her spare time and thinks that "Holby
City" is real?
(takes a deep breath...)
At tea break my phone beeped with a
notification. A friend had died.
We first met Hurksy through the noble
art of hunting for film pots under rocks. Incredibly dedicated to this pursuit
he would not walk away until he'd found what he was looking for. We'd waste
hours hunting for geocaches that weren't there any more. Up until he decided
he's rather hunt for Tupperware up a tree than on the ground we'd go out every
weekend. All over Kent and Essex, with several weekends away in Sussex, and one
particularly memorable trip to Cornwall. He was very jealous of my hat ("the
world's sexiest hat"); he thought I didn't know that he'd set light to
it on a summer barbecue.
He earned the sobriquet "Gordon
Tracey" from the time when he failed to completely clear the river he
was jumping one New Year's Day.
He'd been ill for some time, and passed
away last night.
There's never a good time to die, but what with the ongoing
lock-down his funeral will be a rather quiet thing. I hope there's a
remembrance event at some point.
No comments:
Post a Comment