 |
| Big Merseyside is watching you |
 |
| Freedom of speech, just watch what you say |
You might recall the composer of this Riefenstahlian ditty, Mike Oldfield, who is best known for composing the theme from "The Exorcist." I don't know that it's possible to exorcise what's taken root in England, but we'd better damned well understand that the world they inhabit, where parents of Alfie Evans are denied the ability to seek medical treatment for their child, a child the NHS would prefer to scrub off the books, is what many of our neighbors seek for us. And if you object in a public manner, the Merseyside Police are going to be monitoring you. And I have no doubt our neighborhoods have plenty of people who would happily sign up for such a world.
The heel of the boot is always closer to your throat than you know. And the North American landmass and an ocean aren't going to matter. The Merseyside Police may not be coming for you, but they have contemporaries.
5 comments:
This is not a new development. I blogged about the case of Charlotte Wyatt - another baby that the Brit NHS wanted to kill - back in 2003.
http://thenightwriterblog.com/2005/04/24/charlottes-web-when-the-state-decides-if-your-baby-shall-live-or-die/
And it's not just babies. I also wrote about the NHS going to court to get an order affirming that the doctors didn't have to keep providing water and oxygen to a disabled, comatose patient, even if the patient had requested in writing in advance that he continue to receive this care. It was rather Python-esque, except it was so sad. (My vote for the "funniest line": “Ultimately, the court said, a patient cannot demand treatment the doctor considers to be ‘adverse to the patient’s clinical needs.'” You mean, such as, “Please don’t starve me to death?”)
http://thenightwriterblog.com/2009/07/28/i-dont-want-to-go-on-the-cart/
More recently, I was more than a little interested in the account by Dr. Bruce Kramer, a dean at St. Thomas, about why he was not going to commit suicide in response to his ALS diagnosis and progression. Dr. Kramer criticized the myopia of those who support with-holding care from the terminally ill by saying, "I wouldn't want to live like that" while not realizing that in almost all of our lives each of us are only "temporarily abled". He was responding to David Brooks' editorial espousing that the terminally ill really owed it to the nation to not keep soaking up important healthcare resources. Dr. Kramer's response was that a "good death" was in making the most good out of any remaining days; it was not "Offing oneself with the thanks of a grateful nation."
https://tmblr.co/ZmABin1gcgXfX
Well said. There is something incredibly creepy about a hospital/health service that goes to court to prevent another hospital from trying to help a patient. It is as if they're aware that folks in Rome might have some abilities to help that they don't, and they aren't keen on letting that be known.
Btw, Dr. Kramer's article, "Suicide Is Not the Answer to Lou Gehrig's Disease" is still available on the Strib website:
http://www.startribune.com/suicide-is-not-the-answer-to-lou-gehrig-s-disease/126804588/
Interestingly, other articles indicate that hospital staff are being warned to hide their identification because they are being threatened by the public. The father has changed his tune regarding the staff, I would guess because he's been threatened by the prosecutor that his rear end will be put in jail if he keeps bad-mouthing those who are trying to kill his son.
Not supposed to think this way, but sometime, if people who pull this kind of stunt had some kind of adverse event due to those hurt by it, it would be poetic justice.
BTW, as of 2016, Charlotte Wyatt was alive and well, though disabled. Her abuse at the hands of the NHS led (among other things I'm sure) to the divorce of her parents. I have to wonder how much better she'd have done had she gotten care in the U.S.
Which is, again, I think the real issue. NHS will not survive if their "hopeless" cases start recovering somewhere else in the world.
I'm sure there's an officially secured and sanctioned gate of entry and exit around the hospital that is surrounded by police to keep Alfie and family in. I'm just wondering if they call this gate "Checkpoint Charlie."
Post a Comment