Somewhat snootily, I must admit, I routinely dismiss calls by people who are keen to preserve cash, as most of us adapt seamlessly to contactless methods of payments. Once my initial fear of having to learn something new has dissipated, I’m usually more than happy to embrace most things that make my life easier. But I am far from convinced that that everything changes for the better.
I have already written about the threatened closure of railway station ticket offices, a subject about which I have mixed feelings. The government says that ticket offices aren’t needed anymore because hardly anyone uses them and while there’s more than a grain of truth about that, Rishi Sunak is turning into a liar of Boris Johnson proportions, so there must be another reason, which will be cutting costs. Change, as we see is not always a matter of black and white or good and bad, but I am beginning to conclude that change brought about the need to cut costs of imposed because of cost-cutting are almost always bad.
Take my local health centre – please. Old people like me grew up during a time when it was possible to see a GP, usually on the same day. Now, it appears to be impossible to see a GP at all, if my experience, and that of others, is anything to go by. Two weeks ago today, I had some tests at the health centre and two days later, the GP messaged to say some things require further investigations so could I let them know my unavailable dates for the next week so he could call. There were hardly any, so I waited for the call. Two weeks later, I get a text saying the GP will telephone me a week on Friday at a stupid early morning time at which I specifically requested they didn’t contact me at all. So, three weeks just to get a phone call with a GP who was made my GP some years ago and who I have never met.
Presumably, he will advise me that I’m about to shuffle off my mortal coil and/or he will prescribe me even more drugs for whatever it is he thinks is wrong with me. Let’s hope that anything he prescribes is available in the pharmacy next door, as I am currently managing without the statins he told me to take to sort out my cholesterol, because they haven’t got any. Either way, words like “investigations’ make me shiver and given my status as a mental health basket case and my stress and anxiety levels are through the roof. But what’s three and a half weeks in relation to a whole lifetime? There’s only another ten days of high anxiety to concern myself with. How this beats going to a small local surgery, without an appointment, and being seen on the same day beats me, but then, as I always say, I’m very old fashioned. So, who do I blame? Here, in order, is my list:
- David Cameron and Nick Clegg
- Theresa May
- Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson
- Liz Truss
- Rishi Sunak
When voters had decided they’d had enough of the Labour government which had saved the NHS after 18 years of Tory neglect, presumably they had overlooked the simple fact that waiting lists no longer existed and that seeing a GP was a straightforward activity. Now, over seven million people are on waiting lists and many more have effectively sold the family jewels in order to be treated by private sector vultures and parasites. (Full disclosure: I was one of those jewelry sellers in order to get my ADHD assessment and diagnosis.) Another 13 years of Tory government has reduced the NHS to its knees. This is surely not just opinion, but a matter of fact. The simple fact is they don’t believe in the NHS, never have and never will.
Tory modernisation of the NHS has simply involved cutting it to the bone. And that’s why it’s hard to get a GP appointment and why many millions of people are suffering, often for years, on waiting lists which were already massive long before Covid came along.
The biggest and best change I can suggest is that we get rid of this tired and nasty Tory government at the earliest possible opportunity. Having crashed the economy, Sunak’s Tories will leave an unenviable mess for Labour to clear up but the simple reality is if somehow we let the Tories back in again, there will be no NHS to complain about.
