Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

jimmy b - That`s one thing I would not hold against the left wing rodent that seems to me to be in awe of any of his clan that have little more by way of common sense than the poor soul that gave birth to such a creature but it maybe only his wish to reflect his image in his most recent cartoon (post 79815), if it is indeed a cartoon and not a photo of his own family.

Clockworks.

You need rewinding.

But you must be one of the "up and at 'em Brigade".

Good for you!

You will need all the help you can get!

Just whats needed Fred1 - a shot up the Royals **** to leave us with a republic or dictatorship (as long as its me) :-)

How much of the NHS budget has been used on them, rather than them going private, and when the elderly ones are in need once again, due to age and infirmity, it maybe the NHS picking up the bill I bet.

NHS
everyone knows that it is impossible to continue with free cradle to grave care

unfortunately, it has to become so critical that the various political parties will put aside their dogma and actually put their minds on how to restructure

sadly, i can't imagine that that will be within my lifetime

Adopt the French system of healthcare.

Part pay for any consultation with the quack, any quack, you are not stuck with a duffer, you can go wherever you like.

70% of treatment paid by central gov, balance down to you or through health insurance. Pay as you go with reimbursement via health card. €22 a visit with about €17 repaid via the card. Stops silly visits.

Most testing stuff is done by private contractors, again you have to pay and get reimbursed, but very quick (same day or instant) for routine stuff.



Bite the bullit, as c says, the present system cant continue.

I know it's the Express, but even so..


https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/901800/NHS-crisis-health-tourism-foreign-patients-NHS-taxpayer-bill

Problem with paying the doctor part or all and claiming back is that they just shove up the prices to visit, as they know the tax payer will pick up the cost, so everybody pays more.

The best way to fund it (NHS) and slow the excess property prices rises, would be to give every tenant the right to buy after around five years (from private landlords) at the current market price - then tax the owners 50% of any profit made on the profit.

An opposition resist kicking a government and us accepting the NHS can't do everything, that'll be the day.

Doctors offered to turn off Stephen Hawking's life support system 33 years ago.

Yesterday, Monday, 8 January 2018, was his 76th birthday.

Since 1963, Hawking has been suffering from a form motor neurone disease known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS for short. At the time doctors gave him just two years to live.

The disease kills most of its victims within the first five years but he has defied the odds of doctors and has continued to survive for more than 50 years.

This could have been a very different situation.

In 1985 his then-wife refused doctors' query of whether to turn off his life support machine when he was struck down with pneumonia.

Hawking was in a drug-induced coma in a Geneva hospital at the time. In the 2013 documentary Hawking, he said:

"The doctors thought I was so far gone that they offered Jane to turn off the machine.
Jane refused to turn it off. She insisted I be flown back to Cambridge. The weeks of intensive care which followed were the darkest of my life."

The disease has left him unable to speak and in need of constant care but this hasn't prevented him from continuing his work in science.

In 1988 he released his book, "A Brief History of Time", which has since sold 10 million copies worldwide and he continues to give speeches and lectures all over the world.

He has also become a role model for disabled people all around the globe - he spoke at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Paralympic Games in London.

Furthermore, his disability has given him a new sense of purpose and lust for life.

In the aforementioned documentary he said:

"Because every day could be my last, I have a desire to make the most of every single minute."

It should be noted that Hawking's case seems to be the exception to the rule when it comes to this disease. Hawking was 21 when he was diagnosed and was not expected to see his 25th birthday, let alone his 76th.

One explanation was offered by Leo McCluskey, an associate professor of neurology and medical director of the ALS Centre at the University of Pennsylvania. He told Scientific American:

"One thing that is highlighted by this man's course is that this is an incredibly variable disorder in many ways. On average people live two to three years after diagnosis. But that means that half the people live longer, and there are people who live for a long, long time.

Life expectancy turns on two things: the motor neurons running the diaphragm—the breathing muscles. So the common way people die is of respiratory failure. And the other thing is the deterioration of swallowing muscles, and that can lead to malnutrition and dehydration.

If you don't have these two things, you could potentially live for a long time—even though you're getting worse. What's happened to him is just astounding. He's certainly an 'outlier'."

(outlier: a person or thing differing from all other members of a particular group or set.)

Good old Mother Teressa.

NHS
if overseas visitors and similar were made to pay at the door before treatment, as is the case in europe or any private clinic in uk, then an awful of money would be brought in

the wimpish excuse that NHS is not set up to collect money just doesn't wash

===========

what would or should happen in an emergency?
not sure to be honest, but it is a valid comment that fred will assuredly bring up

"Where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise.'”

Glad to see you accept your situation Fred1.

An amended version from Lewis Carroll for the old Sage Fred1:

“You are old, Fred1,” the young man said,
“And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head –
Do you think, at your age, it is right?”

“In my youth,” Fred1 replied to his son,
“I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I’m perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.”

:-)

The old Lewis Carroll jokes are often the best.

Re: Charging in the NHS

On the off-chance the staff on the front line of 'who would be doing the job of asking for the money' might get into an argument with patients or maybe a bit of a harder task of work to have to do, it's no wonder they get away with the really good excuse:

"We are so overworked with what we have to do already, without taking on even more work in the doing all the admin for billing and chasing down non-payers, etc, etc."

The NHS needs a total re-think and a total re-organisation from top to bottom and to include care for the sick and elderly too. It also needs a re-think about euthanasia.

Exec.

Are you volunteering for Euthanasia?

Take Clockwork and a few others with you.

Perhaps, TM and JH.

"Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak –
Pray, how did you manage to do it?”

“In my youth,” said Fred1, “I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life.”

Thanks to Lewis Carroll.

Lewis Carroll? Blimey, you boys sure know how to enjoy yourselves. S'pose you'll be onto Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Wordsworth Longfellow next.

:o)

Who?

Dylan Thomas, 1914 - 1953

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.



-=-=-=-=-=-


But I can remember Polly Garter.

Did you use Polly Garter to hold your stockings up, Fred? :o)