The Pig is back?

This time last year we were slowly winding down as GPs from the great swine flu PanicDemic that never was. This year we are starting to prepare for one of the greatest public health cons namely that of the annual influenza vaccination program whereby all those vulnerable and at risk patients are offered the 'flu jab.

Already in reception it is like local travel agents at certain times of the year as people are asking if the can book themselves onto the annual hajj for the elderly (which is probably three times bigger than the real Hajj) whereby there is a mass migration on certain days of the year to the place of worship called the GP’s surgery.

Here the pilgrims line up, take a number and freely expose their arms from under their 5 layers of winter warmth to receive their communion with the needle that will provide them with absolution through the winter from all ailments known to man.

Three days later a lot of them will be back saying “The jab didn’t work, I've got 'FLU”. Still all these grateful pilgrims leave behind them a little token of their gratitude to those administering their absolution and, also their fellow patients who follow, in that there is always an unmistakable odour after any flu clinic that lingers for a day or so after.

But enough ranting about the practicalities of mass cons we noted a small article in one of the GP rags which announces the return of the pig.

Did you know that this year’s flu jab contains the deadly, evil, lethal, killer swine flu pandemic virus (H1N1) as one of the viruses it will protect the pilgrims from?

Think of the ethical implications, to tell or not to tell?

Remember all the concern last year about whether it was safe? The concern last year was of Guillian-Barré syndrome but this year’s concern is, is it linked to narcolepsy? Remember how long it would take to explain the science and what we knew?

Flu clinics are masterpieces of medical mass production and are usually timed with military precision with X patients per minute.

If we say "Do you know the vaccine has swine flu in it?" can you imagine how much extra time that we add to one single immunization attempt?

“Well I don’t know. Will it give me swine flu? That kills you doesn’t it? Can I ring my son? Can I ask my friend Mavis? I didn’t want that one last year. I just want the normal flu jab, can I have that instead? If I get flu from the flu jab will it kill me? If I get flu can I have Tamiflu? Can I have Tamiflu just in case?”

And any others we have missed. We can see the lightening speed of your average geriatrics’ central processing unit trying to digest this new piece of information, form a conclusion and plan of action in nanoseconds.

The well oiled engine of the winter flu pilgrimage would splutter to a halt in the same way that your car would if the fuel injection system failed. What would normally take 2 hours will take . . . how long?

Praise be to the Party for keeping this one quiet. What fun we may all have over the ethics and practicality of what this information may unleash. Piggy’s back and that’s not the viral one (yet?).

More NHS Choice, Swine Flu and Immunization.

One of the advantages of being involved in medical education is that every now and again you go to meetings and talk to different doctors at different stages of training outside of your own Practice. A few days ago one of us did just that and came back with a rather worrying story.

It would appear that one of the many local hospitals is “encouraging” their staff to have the swine flu immunization.

Obviously an excellent idea of the benevolent Party looking after its own as it says, in one of its briefings for managers, that if you are sick with the dreaded Swine flu then you cannot be allowed to work and look after patients.

How caring is the Party? It is so concerned for the well being of the comrade workers on the frontline that, in order to enable them to continue to care for their fellow comrade patients, it is offering them a free flu jab ahead of all others.

The carrot.

What is more worrying is that staff are being told that, if they do not have the Swine flu jab, and then they dare to be ill with Swine flu, they will face "disciplinary action" for not having had the “voluntary” swine flu shot. If they have the shot and get Swine flu they will not. Same illness, two different outcomes?

The doctor in training from whom we got this little gem in passing also said that managers were prowling the wards at night in the small hours to immunize their staff after these threats. Good stasi tactics there comrade managers.

The stick.

Now we may be old fashioned here at ND Central but we still, as far as we know, have the concept of informed choice in healthcare.

Unless the Law has changed as a result of us here in the UK “democratically” accepting the Lisbon Treaty after the "promised" referendum, a patient has the right, if they are compos mentis, to decline treatment even if it may harm them (assuming no other conflicting law for example the Suicide Act).

Now if any lawyers are reading perhaps we could suggest that rather than sniffing round A&E departments there may be rich pickings to be had here.

Employment Law, European Law, Human Rights Laws surely are being breached here as well as basic medical and nursing ethics and codes of conduct?

What if a patient who is coerced to have a shot gets Guillain-Barre syndrome? A lawyer’s Christmas present in one convenient bundle perchance?

And at what cost then to a local hospital or more importantly to the NHS for the incompentent local managers’ zeal in the face of basic medical ethics and human rights?

Come the New Year we may start to know the success or failure of the Swine Flu pan(dem)ic vaccination program in terms of Guillain-Barre syndrome. We are normally great advocates of vaccination when the science is there but given the fact that a few days ago the local Politburo came to immunize priority staff and less than a third of the doctors took it up does that tell you something?

Praise be the Party for we know it to be all wise.

We hope it rewards these managers with the prize that they will surely richly deserve a one way ticket to their spiritual homeland:

North Korea.