"If more people knew that if they got drunk they were going to be arrested, they wouldn’t drink in the first place"
They are a charming bunch, aren't they? Always confusing what would happen with what should happen.
The rest of the article is a who's who of the modern temperance movement pleading for minimum pricing. Typical Observer agitprop, in other words.
The comments sound like the Daily Mail!
ReplyDeleteWhat a miserable lot humans are.
Dr Cliff Mann is a disgrace to his profession.
We
all pay into the NHS, even the ones who are not "well-behaved",
according to our ability. The deal is, we get the treatment that we
need, NOT the treatment we "deserve".
If anyone is ever refused treatment, they should be excused having to pay in.
Anyone
who uses violence should be prosecuted, being "drunk" has no relevance.
There is usually a policeman at a hospital at troublesome hours.
Complaining
about poor service is NOT causing trouble. The service at A&E is
dreadful on weekend evenings. That is the fault of Management. If it's a
predictable busy time, (for any reason) increase the staffing! We've
paid a lot of money, we're entitled to complain about innefficient
management. If the management aren't there, we have to complain the
frontline staff. Their responsibility is to pass it on. Just the same as
a supermarket, except that we pay through the nose for this, and we
don't have a choice.
I wish I could opt out of the NHS, the
saving would easily cover any medical bills. But I can't. So I will
complain when I get poor service. Why else would they bother to improve?
Sorry if this is a ramble. But it's getting ridiculous.
PS, I have never been to A&E drunk. But that's not the point. We all pay, we should all get service.
Service. it's good word, isn't it?
Any
staff who can't handle it, they're in the wrong job. Sorry. The NHS
does not exist for the staff. It exists for the patients. All of them.
I
shan't get drunk at New Year, it's not my thing. But I'm happy for
those who do. We are free men. If we are forced to pay in advance for
health care, we should bloody get it when we need it!
Rant over.
Jesus!
And also maybe the fact the population ballooned over the last 15 years has something to do with stretched A&E/NHS resources despite increased spending year on year on year. Just a suggestion!
ReplyDeleteAlso, this comment
ReplyDelete"It might be unpopular, but buying rounds should be limited somehow.
When I used to go out with some rather heavy drinkers many years ago I'd often be at the stage where I'd had enough to drink and then another pint would turn up."
Err, so because this twat can't stand up for himself there has to be, what, some state controlled "round buying limit system"? Does he know how he sounds?
I agree with most of what Zaphod has written. I won't be celebrating "New Year" as, being a follower of Jesus, I don't partake of Pagan practices. I probably do unawares as there are so many. (1st January was dedicated to Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and transitions and also of gates, doorways and so on.)
ReplyDeleteAgree about opting out of the NHS. I despise it. They don't allow us to opt out because it's primarily there to monitor, control, subvert and kill. I don't personally have a stake in this one as I don't drink any more, having been an alcoholic for a decade and detoxed 17 years ago and 'clean' ever since, with God's grace, but the NHS is now on life support due to money wasted on unnecessary procedures, on overpaying their quack GPs, the consequences of building hospitals via PFI (now that it's payback time), etc., which is one reason for this sort of "cost-cutting".
I'm sure that part of the reasoning for the non-smoking policy in many hospital grounds is as a disincentive to seek treatment. I believe this is how much they hate smokers, because when 4/5ths of the cost of cigarettes is taxation and there is an extra amount since (I think) Brown's government specifically for the NHS, they have an obligation to attend to smokers and I would say that this includes provision to smoke in comfortable surroundings in their (our) facilities.
One (un)intended? consequence of the arrest plans would be that some people would be in a very bad way with booze and their friends won't take them to A&E for fear of their arrest and so try to treat them themselves. Unavoidable deaths, but this is where the NHS excels itself!
And a large proportion of the price of drink is tax, so the cost of treatment has been paid.
And if there is no violence then the NHS has no justification for involving the police. Some arrests would be on normally 'sensible' drinkers getting into trouble for underestimating their limit or maybe their drinks had been spiked.
No, this is part of a wider agenda. Because there is next to nothing that can be done about the drink problem in this country, politicians and other talking heads offer hopeless 'solutions'.
The government also seems intent on having more and more 'grounds' for arresting folk. Recently, an old boy was arrested in Scotland after being grassed up by his neighbours to whom he had referred to other neighbours as 'tinks'.
Now we have politically correct neighbours as grasses. It really is all coming together nicely for the controllers.
In ten years drinking, I was only picked up twice. The first time by an ambulance and driven to have my stomach pumped out and the second by a police car after collapsing in the street and driven home.
But because the lawmakers no longer have anybody's interest at heart, except maybe their own and the criminals', these intensely insane reactions become part of our "services".
Minimum pricing would put perhaps a million or far more problem drinkers at risk of starvation and of freezing to death, both of which could have happened to me even with 'normal' prices. I had to choose between eating/heating (coin meter)/public phones/public transport, etc., or drink - and drink won. It had to. It's an illness.
At least I was single. Alcoholics with families will be even more devastated by min. pricing. I knew a family of six which never knew if they would eat because the dad had a bad drink problem. Mum used to go without so that the young children had food. I dread to think what will happen next.
So many unintended (sic) consequences in the campaign of hatred against smokers, drinkers and the dreaded 'Obese'.