NHS Whistblower branded "Too Honest"

Maha Yassaie used to be a chief pharmacist in the NHS' Berkshire West primary care trust. She was dismissed after disciplinary procedures when she alerted senior management of her concerns; these included a colleague of hers who was being bribed by a pharmaceutical company to prescribe certain drugs and a doctor who attempted to commit suicide using controlled drugs from her pharmacy. Mrs Yassaie was then labelled a "bully" by management. She was cleared of the allegations, but was still sacked in the end on the grounds that "her relationship with the trust had broken down"... how conveniently vague. She believes this was their attempt to cover up the misconduct that she had alerted them to. The independent investigator appointed told the former pharmacist that "...if I had your values I would find it very difficult to work in the NHS." Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/03/nhs-whistle-blower-told-she-was-too-honest-to-work-for-the-healt/?utm_source=dlvr.it. There are some parallels between Mrs Yassaie's experience and my own dismissal in 2012. I was also accused of bullying. In my case the allegation was particularly heinous because my alleged victim was "disabled"; meaning that he suffers from a comparatively minor learning difficulty and is registered under the Protection of Vulnerable Adults law. I also suspected even back then that honesty is not the best policy if you want a long and fruitful career in British public healthcare. During the last St Theo's Day party, see: http://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/happy-st-theos-day-2016.html, I found out that a particular man I served with up to the time of my discharge is still there. This man is notoriously bad at his job. He is lazy, untrustworthy, incompetent and unreliable; yet he is tolerated when I wasn't. He is still there when I am not. Management simply will not sack him, or even reprimand him. I've christened porters like these "untouchables". This man understands his status very well and arrogantly laughs in the face of anybody who criticizes him, every time he sneaks away for another three-hour cigarette break, or disappears off duty early, only to be late the next day or off sick for no reason. A lot of porters will back me up on this; the better you are at your job, the more you get picked on by the boss. It's very frustrating. It's as if the NHS doesn't want decent servicemen. They actively favour dullards and delinquents who they know will run the system into the ground. When I posted this story on social media the other day, lots of people commented to say that they also had been victimized for being honourable and hard-working. As each day passes I regret the ending of my NHS portering career less and less. Maybe this is why.

See here for more information: http://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/one-year-on.html.

Happy St Theo’s Day 2016

On behalf of every serving hospital porter, every former hospital porter, and everybody else who loves, appreciates and supports us, with all the Pride and Dignity of my Extremely Proud and Dignified Brother and Sister Porters, I'd like to wish all my friends and readers, a very happy St Theo's Day. For the first time I have covered my pre-St Theo’s Day procedure on HPANWO TV: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/st-theos-day-2016.html. 

St Theo's Day 2016 Fliers

The fliers for this year's St Theo's Day are finished. Pretty soon I shall print and distribute them. This year, as with last year, I have produced two different fliers, one for the Oxfordshire hospitals on my doorstep; and another to be distributed to other institutions around the country. I will send the second national flier by post, addressed to the Porters in those institutions.

St Theo's Flyer (JR) by Ben Emlyn-Jones

St Theo's Flyer (National) by Ben Emlyn-Jones

Wittgenstein's Poker

On the evening of the 25^th of October 1946 that great hospital porter... and occasional part-time philosopher... Ludwig Wittgenstein was at a philosopher’s meeting, the Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club, with one of his contemporaries, Sir Karl Popper having a debate, the details of which are described in the book linked below. I didn’t realize this, but philosophers’ debates can sometimes become very vitriolic, and in this case the hot-headed hospital porter became so enraged that he walked over to the room’s hearth, picked up a poker, and moved to attack his civilian colleague with it. What happened next is a bit vague, but one version of events relates that another philosopher, maybe the famous Bertrand Russell who was also in the room, managed to hold Wittgenstein back and pacify him. Wittgenstein then stormed out of the room. If something like that got his goat, then I wonder how he maintained his poise with the fickle and arrogant pharmacists at Guys Hospital The story was related in a bestselling book in 2001: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wittgensteins-Poker-David-Edmonds/dp/057120547X.

This story has an interesting conclusion. During the intervening seventy years the room where the meeting took place has been refurbished and the poker was removed and lost, as often happens renovations, but amazingly it has recently resurfaced and Alan McFarlane has put a label on it; I imagine he’ll mount it on the wall in pride of place or put it in a museum or something. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBmt2sCdd5E. This story inspired me to name my Mind Set radio show The Poker, see: http://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/the-poker-programme-10.html.

Background article: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2011/07/hospital-porters-who-changed-world.html.

National Health Singers- YOURS!

One of the biggest industrial actions ever undertaken in the NHS is underway now. The junior doctors' decision to strike was not taken lightly. They know that it will cost lives. The government also know this and this is why they have always taken advantage of NHS employees through moral blackmail. The doctors' courageous resistance to the usual trickery has gained a lot of public support. As a result they have produced a song called YOURS that has had over a hundred thousand views merely on its official YouTube channel, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFl5yB6_9OI. I played the song on Programme 178 of the HPANWO Show on HPANWO Radio, see: http://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/programme-178-podcast-gary-heseltine.html.

See here for background: http://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/allyson-pollock-at-tedx.html.

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

NHS Nurses destroy Patient's Doll

The National Health Service, in its death throes, seems to be recruiting more and more people who can only be described as sick fucks. I've had the misfortune to encounter a couple of these characters during my own hospital service, and I always knew they were capable of far more than they appeared to be on the surface, see background links below. The heartbreaking and enraging story of Susan Hearsey, a sixty-four year old with learning difficulties, comes as no surprise to me at all. Along with being deprived of proper medical care and being forced to endure unsanitary levels of hygiene, Mrs Hearsey was subjected to a cruel and unusual punishment by a nurse that was tailor-made to specifically target her vulnerabilities. Because of her mental condition, Mrs Hearsey owns a child's doll that she believes is her real baby. She is similar in that regard to Debra Schiman, the former owner and carer of "Bearsac", see: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/find-bearsac-now.html. Knowing this, the people at Walsall Manor Hospital, who were supposed to be caring for Mrs Hearsey, mutilated the doll in front of her. The doll, which Mrs Hearsey calls Rachel, was later found on the floor with its arms and legs severed, its clothes pulled off and its hair ripped out. According to her sister Jane Dunn, pictured above holding the damaged doll, Mrs Hearsey has never recovered from her ordeal. The hospital initially denied the incident and only offered to buy Mrs Hearsey a new doll, but the family went to the High Court and after an investigation the NHS trust have formally apologized and paid the family £65,000 in compensation. However the staff members who mentally tortured Mrs Hearsey are still serving at the hospital. This is inexplicable and inexcusable. The NHS have no hesitation in discharging a porter for making a video, see: http://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/one-year-on.html, yet are not concerned by the presence in their ranks of spiteful abusers like those who carried out this sadistic assault on one of their defenceless patients. The family have not let the matter lie and are initiating further action against the NHS trust; I wish them luck and my heart goes out to Susan Hearsey. Source: http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/589220/NHS-pays-out-65-000-disabled-woman-mutilating-doll-child. I don't blame another elderly patient for taking a gun with her into that hospital, see: http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2015/10/14/woman-95-keeps-revolver-in-walsall-manor-hospital-for-eight-days/. What's more the corruption in the NHS has been further exposed when they were caught out covering up multiple unexplained deaths of in-patients, see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35051845. According to the psychologist and clinical ponerologist Prof. Kevin Dutton, psychopaths gravitate towards certain career paths and he has compiled a list of the top ten. Number one, no surprise, is finance. However I was surprised to see that number two is medicine. Doctors, especially surgeons, have among them a far high proportion of psychopaths than the average of 6%; or higher, depending on the source, see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/channel-4s-psychopath-night.html. I don't know what the figures are for nursing, but it wouldn't surprise me if they were also above average, even if nursing doesn't make Dutton's sociopathic hit parade. The people who humiliated and degraded this vulnerable old lady certainly exhibit the right tendencies. Shame on the NHS! I wouldn't go back to them now if they begged me. I spit in the face of whoever dares make me the offer.

See here for background: http://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/killer-nurses.html.

And: http://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/allyson-pollock-at-tedx.html.

An Open Letter to Richard Dawkins

Dear Prof. Dawkins.

I know you're used to people writing to you mostly because of religious matters and indeed I have studied your works on religion and atheism in detail, but never felt inclined to discuss them with you directly. Contrary to what you're used to, this letter is not about religion at all, and is all about your recent TV series Sex, Death and the Meaning of Life (Incidentally it's not a good idea to give your programme a title that makes it sound like a Woody Allen comedy). In one episode you bring up the ancient Greek myth of Sisyphus, the king who was punished by the gods by having to continuously role a boulder uphill for eternity. You then go and find what you believe is a real life Sisyphus, one Hori Lal, a man whose job it is to sweep the streets of Varanasi, India. Do you really think that this is an appropriate comparison? Appropriate or not it is certainly deeply disrespectful. There is an enormous difference between Mr Lal's duty and the punishment of Sisyphus. Nobody would suffer if Sisyphus found some way of dropping his rock and escaping the Olympians' divine wrath. However, if Mr Lal downed his broom Varanasi would very quickly become buried under a mountain of its own refuse. Mr Lal carries out an essential public service and, you are correct to say, it's a shame India has a caste system that looks down on his duty. It is very insulting to compare such a man to a mythological figure who is burdened with an eternal useless chore as retribution for perceived wrongs.

Like myself, you live in Oxford and therefore you or a member of your family will almost certainly have at some point needed the medical assistance of the John Radcliffe Hospital. I was a porter there for over twenty-three years. This was a position in the hospital's own unofficial caste system similar to Hori Lal's in Varanasi. Hospital porters are the dalits of the NHS. However I performed my service with great pride. I considered myself an essential member of a life saving team doing one of the most important jobs in the entire world. In fact I once calculated that if you took away the porters, the JRH would grind to a halt within quarter of an hour. It's perfectly possible that one day I helped to make you better; so that you were in good enough health to travel the world to exotic locations making TV programmes that patronize people like me and Mr Lal. Think about that.

Yours sincerely.

Ben Emlyn-Jones

(former porter at the John Radcliffe Hospital)

This letter is based on an article I wrote a while ago, see: http://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/richard-dawkins-patronizing-git.html.