Emergencies.

This last week we have seen an ever increasing number of “emergencies”. In contrast to any other “market” driven industry where if customers want more they are charged more the NHS “market” that Andrew L., a right wing or Conservative politician in the UK feels is the way forward, is actually counterproductive for one of his tenets is the fact that no-one should pay for using it. No-one politician from the Tripartite coalition on healthcare has realized this fundamental flaw in their “market” driven policies for none of them have worked in healthcare.

At the end of a long week where all the highly trained and expensively trained healthcare professionals are feeling the strain of seeing no illness just self centered I want and I want it now, a session at the infamous Café Michelle resistance café has led us to produce this. It is based on the huge numbers of comments from patients and staff alike over the last few weeks and is based on a Country and Western song the original words above our take below in italics:

Our little boy came up to his mama in the kitchen this evening

Our patients kept coming up to us in the surgery this evening

While she was fixing supper

While we were on call and working late

And he handed her a piece of paper he'd been writin' on

It was called a complaint

And after wipin' her hands on her apron she read it and this is what it said

And while trying to do a surgery and dealing with numerous abnormal lab test results, requests from social services, Macmillan nurses, and telephone requests for advice and trying to see patients as well

For mowing the yard 5 dollars

For doing your accountants £ 10,000 a year

For making my own bed this week 1 dollar

For our legal advice this year £ 10,000 a year

For going to the store 50 cents

For doing your building work and cocking everything up and not fixing it £ 20,000

For playing with my little brother while you went shopping 25 cents

For being your local vicar

For taking out the trash 1 dollar

For charging you for hiring you 3 skips this year £ 800

For getting a good report card 5 dollars

For wasting time on appraisal

And for raking the yard 2 dollars

For cleaning up the PIP implants and other private sector cock ups

Total amount owed 14 dollars and 75 cents

A fraction of the cost if NHS GPs charged as per the private sector

Well as mama looked at him standing there expectantly

Well as their GP looked at their patients standing there greedily expecting

And I could see the memories flashing through her mind

And we could see our memories of them flashing through our minds

And so she picked up the pen and turning the paper over

If we could we would pick up a 9mm and . . .

This is what she wrote and I read it to him

This would be unprintable . . .

For the nine months she carried you growing inside her, no charge

For the nine months of antenatal care and even pre conceptual care and IVF treatment and your pathetic sick notes, no charge

For the nights we sat up with you, doctoring you, praying for you, no charge

For the nights you demanded home visits for a prescription for Calpol, no charge

For the time and the tears that you've caused through the years there's no charge

For your continued abuse of something that is free, no charge

When you added all up the full cost of our love is no charge

When you add it all up the full cost of UK General Practice to the patient is, no charge

For the nights filled with dread and the worries ahead, no charge

For being able to see a qualified doctor at any time with no illness, no charge

For advice and for knowledge and the cost of your college, no charge

For the costs to the doctors of the future for their advice and knowledge needed to treat you then, no charge.

For the toys food and clothes and for wiping your nose there's no charge

For free prescriptions, free referrals, free treatment, and answering all your pathetic complaints for not getting what you wanted only what you actually needed there’s no charge

When you added all up the full cost of our love is no charge

When you added all up that UK General Practice provides the full cost of our care is no charge

Well when he finished readin' he had big tears in his eyes
And he looked up at his mother and he said mama I sure do love you
Then he took the pen and in great big letter he wrote Paid In Full
When you added all up the full cost of our love is no charge

If only.

And still they come with ever more non illnesses for which they value us even less but it is always an emergency and of course, no charge.

Praise be to the Party for if only the misuse of the NHS was as easy as the child in the song to control.

The child learns a lesson through its ignorance. The NHS misusing patient is only rewarded by politicians for misusing it for they promise ever more.