The NHS Religion

As St Theo's Day approaches, now is a good time to reflect on the twelve months that have just passed and ask some fundamental questions about the way we can save our proud profession and the healthcare system it is a part of. My answers might be controversial and objectionable to some readers. During my career in the UK National Health Service I went through many changes. I began as a very naive and quite antagonistic teenager who quickly got sucked into leftist politics through the powerful trade union presence in the Oxford hospital community. The ethos of that mindset was very polarized and inflexible: public-good-private-bad. I became disillusioned with trade unionism very quickly. I was probably only really hardcore for about a year. As my twenties dawned I developed a more nuanced view of the NHS. However I stuck to the principles of public-good-private-bad long after I had become much more centrist on other issues. This was because I experienced NHS privatization directly, from the inside. The NHS trust introduced policies that I regarded as insane, although they were actually very cold and calculated; see the background links below. This preserved in me a dim view of private enterprise, at least when it comes to public utilities and essential services. As I matured through the years I came to understand that the public sector in its present form is actually far from perfect. I also came to understand that the private sector can take many forms and not all of them are bad. Socialists have a go-to answer whenever their critics bring up the excesses and brutality of the Soviet Union: "Yes, but that wasn't real socialism!" Well, could it be that what we see in the world today which the socialists lambaste so much is not real capitalism? This video by Niall Murphy is very interesting:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwZ32nUIEFo. 

Niall brings up some of the same points that I have been contemplating, including an awareness of the difference between the different socio-economic models that are given the label capitalism. He uses the terms "monopolist" and "gangster capitalism", which is attributed to Terence McKenna. Stefan Molyneux calls it "crap-italism", to distinguish it from something that might turn out to be more positive and vigorous, if it's given a chance. The essence of capitalism is said to be the free market. Its supporters claim this encourages perfection through producers competing to provide the best product. Economic growth is indefinite and therefore good capitalism grows it quicker. Its critics say it leads to greed and, in an economy in which capital is limited to a fixed amount, it results in wealth being hoarded by a very few people at the expense of the majority. However, in the NHS there is no competition. The reason contractors are so awful is not because they are private companies, but because they can do whatever the hell they like because they constitute a synthetic monopoly. They're only keeping their place through corruption. They therefore enjoy a parasitic relationship with the NHS, pocketing as much of their fees as possible by doing the cheapest and nastiest job they can get away with. This maximizes short-term profit at the detriment to their employees and the patients they serve. There is no free market involved. The patient cannot choose not to use one company and choose to use another instead. Where's the competition? Also a healthy system would not only have different firms competing to maximize results. To maximize results they would have to sacrifice short-term profit to deliver a better service. To do this they would have to invest more, raise their overheads, pay their staff more and take better care of them. They would also have to value proficient staff over those who were less so, because proficient staff generate profit; whereas in the present state-corporate bureaucracy all staff are worth exactly the same, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2016/12/nurse-sacked-for-praying.html. By sacrificing short-term profit they would be building a secure future of long-term profit. Niall also describes state bureaucracies as "grim and soulless", and that's very true. I only really appreciated that point quite a while after I had moved on. I have no final answers to this matter and I am still thinking it over, but I have moved away from the more conventional suggestions that involves nothing more than better funding and reform by the state alone.

See here for background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2018/01/carillion-collapse-update.html.

And: http://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-nhs-to-be-privatized.html.

And: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2018/01/bransons-nhs-billion.html.

And: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2014/07/allyson-pollock-at-tedx.html.

Pride! Intelligence! Guts!

One thing a hospital porter has to learn very quickly is how to resist humiliation. This is where my dignity statement method comes from, for examples see the background links below. The essence of the dignity statement is to force your antagonist to destroy themselves by reflecting their attack back at them without initiating one of your own. In the course of perfecting this tactic, there are several intriguing and inspiring resources in cinema. Matilda is a 1996 fantasy drama directed by Danny DeVito which is based on a children's novel by Roald Dahl. It is about a young girl called Matilda who discovers that she has magical powers, however her greatest magic is not of the supernatural kind. Her teacher at school is an abusive authoritarian bully called Miss Trunchbull who is brought horribly to life with an ingenious performance by Pam Ferris. One of Matilda's classmates is an obese boy called Bruce who loves chocolate cake. One day he steals a slice from the school kitchen and Miss Trunchbull catches him. As punishment, and as a warning to the other pupils, she forces Bruce to consume the entire cake on stage in the school hall in front of the entire school. The intention is that he will stuff himself to the point of sickness in public view, degrading him. However, during this ordeal Matilda begins cheering him on. The other children follow her lead and soon all of them are encouraging Bruce in his endurance of gluttony. Bruce finishes the cake and holds the empty plate above his head in triumph. Trunchbull realizes that her plan to embarrass Bruce has totally backfired. She shouts at the children to stop, but they refuse. Bruce is their hero. It's one of the most moving film scenes I've ever watched. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOQeU_6vbeg.

Another example is a 1993 film called Bopha! and is a rare directional curiosity by Morgan Freeman. It stars Danny Glover as a South African policeman during the final years of the Apartheid era. His force is constantly under attack by rioters who assault and kill his men at every opportunity. They hurl the insult: "Pig!" at them; it is a derogatory slur for a police officer in my country, Britain, as well. Unfortunately the clip is not available but I remember the scene well and will try to paraphrase it correctly. Glover's character is training new police recruits in a classroom. He says: "Everywhere you go, the people will shout at you: 'pig!... pig!... pig!', but there is something they don't know..." He begins writing on the blackboard. "The word 'pig!' is an acronym: 'P.I.G.' You know what that stands for?: 'Pride... Intelligence... Guts'!" Once again we have a way in which attempts at humiliation fail because the people being attacked know how to defend themselves effectively. During the course of your service you, as a hospital porter, can develop your own versions of these tactics. The two examples from Hollywood I've shown you are just there to give you ideas, as can my own dignity statement experiences. Or even if you're not a hospital porter, you might find this information useful with social and professional interactions in your civilian life. Or perhaps the positive message just makes you feel happy. Good luck!

See here for background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2017/11/fantastic-dignity-statement.html.

And: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2010/11/making-dignity-statements.html.

And: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2019/05/more-blocks-and-digs.html.

And: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-real-eleanor-roosevelt.html.

Sick Hospital Video

A group of nurses have been slammed after a video they made went viral on that usual platform for controversial material, TikTok. The video shows them dancing through their hospital carrying what looks like a shrouded corpse with the word "COVID 19" written on it. The video, which was shot at a hospital in Ghana, has disgusted the world, not long after people first started appreciating healthcarers in a way that they never have before, for example see: http://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2020/04/captain-toms-number-one.html. Source: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11520259/sick-vid-dancing-nurses-carrying-corpse-coronavirus-victim-tiktok/. I do express condemnation myself, but only for the video being made and published, not for the action in itself. Doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals have a ghoulish sense of humour. To an outsider, this will probably appear heartless and facetious. Another good example that I came across many times would be a doctor writing in a patient's notes the acronym T.F. BUNDY. This stands for "Totally Fucked But Unfortunately Not Dead Yet". Horrible, you might think. Vicious! Cruel!... But it is something only done in confidential correspondence. Under no circumstances would a doctor ever speak like that about a patient to their relatives and other loved ones. These ghastly jokes are shared exclusively among healthcare providers in private when they are alone together. In truth it is merely a survival mechanism. Hospitals are places full of pain, fear, illness, injury and death. Staff there have to cope with that every working hour of their lives. If these people did not make sick jokes about their work they would not be able to do it; it's as simple as that.