Private Health Firm Offers Bribes

NHS Staff Cuts Are Risking The Lives Of Patients.
Nurses have warned that staff cuts and overwork are risking the lives of patients in hospitals at night, a clear sign the NHS is in need of emergengy treatment.
The sick and ill go into hospital to get better – not to die.
Nurses on the front line know what is happening in wards.
Platitudes from NHS bureaucrats and health ministers are worthless.
And the truth hurts when it is terrifying.
There will be those who dismiss the testimony of the nurses as scaremongering, accusing trade union Unison of wanting more staff so it can recruit more members.
Yet it is clear to nearly everybody who uses the NHS, or works for it, that financial pressures are becoming unbearable with spending failing to keep up with rising demand.
Wasting billions of pounds on a bureaucratic upheaval to carve up the NHS for privatisation hasn’t helped.
But maintaining standards, let alone improving them, requires an injection of resources.
Either we spend more on health or people will die.
That is the stark choice.
( Daily Mirror, 15.04.2014 )

Bupa Offering Customers Bribes To Have Operations On The NHS.
It is simply not right that a privately run health firm like Bupa, who charge clients tens of thousands of pounds for private health care, then ask them to accept payments, which can only be perceived as bribes, to have complicated operations done on the NHS.
A multi-billion-pound corporation like Bupa should not be allowed to cherry-pick operations for cash, then off-load difficult and costly procedures on the NHS because of concerns for their profits.
( Neil Atherton, 14.04.2014 )

I am pleased the gentleman who was offered £2,000 by Bupa to have his op on the NHS has spoken out.
Private health care firms should not be allowed to take advantage of NHS expertise just so they can maximise their already exorbitant profits.
( C. Price, 14.04.2014 )

The NHS belongs to the people, after all, it’s our contributions that pay for it.
If this is so, why are Cameron and Co being allowed to sell it off through the back door?
( Sandra Phillips, 14.04.2014 )

Labour has demanded an inquiry into the impact of Bupa offering private patients cash to have pricey operations on the NHS to save them money.
( Fiona Parker, Daily Mirror, 14.04.2014 )

Euthanasia Is A Step Too Far.
There is a danger that elderly people will come under pressure to opt for euthanasia.
The pressure may come from relatives who have a financial interest in shuffling the old people out of the way.
It may come from doctors or health services because they do not wish to have the elderly taking up hospital space.
It may come from the characteristic reluctance of the elderly to be a nuisance.
Euthanasia may be regarded as the right and unselfish thing for them to do.
In these circumstances, assisted suicide is not a fully voluntary act.
The UK already has one of the highest rates of teenage suicides in the world.
We have seen how abortion has become commonplace.
Society would be damaged if assisted suicide became as common as abortions.
Liberalism always has a next step they want society to take.
It will be a step too far.
They allow the murder of unborn babies.
They must not allow the murder of elderly people.

Massive Redundancy Payments For NHS Workers.
A couple who worked as NHS bosses pocketed almost £1million in redundancy cash – and were then rehired by the health service.
They were among around 50 staff each paid more than £100,000 when 161 NHS organisations were abolished by the Tory-led Coalition earlier this year.
The TaxPayers’ Alliance said the public would be appalled by the massive payouts.
( Daily Mirror, 02.11.2013 )

An Inbred Hatred For The Working Classes.
After reading how people with lifelong illnesses are being forced to work by French firm Atos, I am amazed no one has prosecuted this company for misdiagnosis, malpractise and more far-reaching charges.
Why is nothing being done to halt this systematic harassment of sick and disabled people, who have to run the gauntlet of abuse and indignity from this company?
Then again, Atos is simply acting under orders from this Tory-led Government, which has an inbred hatred for everything and anything related to the working classes.
( Brian Scully, August 2013 )

Why Do So Many Young Children Die In The UK?
Child mortality rates in the UK are higher than in many other European countries, and in a study published in Archives of Disease in Childhood they compared mortality rates for children younger than five in the UK and Sweden over a three-year period, from 2006 to 2008.
They found that twice as many children under five died in the UK than in Sweden.
The under-five mortality rate is considered by UNICEF to be one of the best indicators of the health of children within any given country.
It is determined from the number of deaths per year in relation to every thousand live births.
Sweden has one of the lowest child death rates in Europe.
Sweden is a good comparison because like the UK it has free public healthcare and a similar level of economic and social development.
The proportion it spends – around 8% – of its gross domestic product on healthcare is also similar to the UK, as is the level of neonatal intensive care.
During the period studied there were around 2.3million live births in the UK and 315,884 in Sweden.
But the mortality rates for newborns (up until the age of 28 days) and children aged under five were all significantly higher in the UK (614 per 100,000) than in Sweden (328 per 100,000).
And for the majority of the causes of death – prematurity, respiratory disorders, infections, cardiovascular, central nervous system and blood-related disorders – they were significantly more frequent in the UK.
Deaths from prematurity, for example, was 13 times greater in the UK, while the risk of death from an infection was almost twice as high in the UK as in Sweden.
Respiratory infections, septicaemia and meningitis all resulted in significantly more deaths in the UK than in Sweden, with rates 59-96% higher in the UK.
( Imti Choonara, Emeritus Professor at University of Nottingham )