The BBC reports that staff at the private clinic where Kate Middleton had her abdominal surgery have been trying to access her medical records and, “allegedly”, one member of staff was “caught trying to gain access”. What lovely people they must be. But then, who is surprised by that? The clue is in the words private clinic. It’s a business that exists to make money by treating rich people, in Kate’s case paid for by you and me, and if the prime motivation is to make money, why would anyone be surprised that the motivation of some people might not put patient care at the top of their priorities?
Of course, I am being probably being unfair to the majority of people who are employed by private health vultures. They’ll be like the rest of us, trying to earn a crust to out that crust on the breakfast table. If that crust is bigger and the work is that much easier than in our overstretched and underfunded NHS, you can understand people’s motivations (you could, I couldn’t).
But more generally speaking, it’s absolutely disgusting that anyone, anywhere, should seek to learn things that are frankly none of their business, whether that’s in the NHS which exists to make sick people better and private healthcare which exists to make money from them. Everyone, including a prominent royal, should be entitled to privacy. Clearly some people aren’t bothered about that.
At the heart of all this is the media obsession with the royal family, which is of course fuelled by the public’s obsession, demonstrated by the extraordinary number of clicks on their websites when a royal “story” appears or is created. And the levels of secrecy surrounding Kate’s condition have also encouraged the Loony Tunes conspiracy brigade who are convinced that things are much worse than we are being told. Who knows if that was a motivation of the London Clinic’s Nosy Parker workers?
Doubtless sooner or later we will find out, whether we want to or not, what was wrong with Kate and indeed King Brian. My only interest in them is that of a fellow human being and that I hope both of them make full and speedy recoveries. And that all of us should mind our own business.
