My Solution to the NHS (by sarah)

Having spent alot of time stuck in hospitals or on waiting lists I then fall off of or never got the letter that told me I had an appointment I thought I would write down how I'd run things if I had complete power!

I would allow privatee patients - but this would not entitle you to jump queues or get better medicine - all it would mean is that you'd get a private room with TV wifi etc... you would still get the same food as that should be regulated to your specific condition. (I did lots of thinking about this whilst in hospital! Especially when they forgot to fed me).

I would also use the private rooms for over spill if there were bed shortages and the pivate patients would get a refund and have to lump it.

I would try and stop the 'us and them' attitude between the doctors and nurses by making drs train as nurses first. (I know this is major over hall of our current education of medical professionals) I would also make them work on ambulances as ambulance stuff before they could qualify etc... and probably make them do 'reminder' stints after qualification.

I would make sure that any management type people have a medical back ground so that (hopefully) they will know what is essential and what is not - again being a nurse first would help with this - they would realise that pillows and blankets are actually needed.

For washing people ect.. I would encourage the spanish system of having the family do it (if they are able to/willing) and only use hospital stuff for that when needed.

I would get food preperation people to come and over hull all the wards and operating theatres so they are easily cleaned - beleive me butches have better hygien than our hospitals. In fact our hospitals or at least the ones I've been in are badly designed in this respect with lots of nooks and crannys for the germs to lerk.

I would implement the design me and hubby came up with for effiencient and hard wearing and modular (so when a bit breaks you just replace that bit.) medical monitors for oxygen, heart rate etc... This would reduce the wires and things and I would make sure there were enough of them! I would also make sure the nurses had a basic understanding of the electronics so that they know when something is broken before the accidently use it on pregnant women and panic when they can't hear the baby (fortunatly I had been in the ward long enough to have worked out which one of the baby monitor things worked and which didnt but if I had been just admitted to the ward with a problem it would have scared me as it was the poor student nurse was in a right state).

Have nutritionist and dieticians incharge of the food so diabetics didn't end up with sugar sweetened friut juice etc (happened to my dad). This would reduce the convelesance time along with proper physiotherapy and excersises regimes for people stuck in hospital etc..

As far as GPs are concerned I would have home visits back and I would have 'check ups' ie you go and see your doctor just for a chat and to mention all those little things like the festy toe nail you wouldnt normal get around for making an appointment for (and you therefore end up causulty cos its gone green and you have a nasty fever - Alaric). I would add in a big smattering of preventative medicine here including talking therapies as well as recipies for garlic consumption for blood thinning etc... - this should in the long run decrease the number of patients in a really bad state before they go to the drs and therefore would save moeny in the long run (not something that is going to interest a government who might only be in term for the next four yrs etc...).

The other thing that I think would be essential is to get rid of medical patents this way as long as there is no longer drug company monopolys and the best treatments will be used rather than the current state of affairs - of course this would mean that alot of drug trials etc... would have to be payed for by the tax payer etc... as the companies that do the research etc... are doing it purely for profiets

The last thing I would do is give hospitals the ability to choose their own contracts for repairs etc... and have harsh penalties for companies that try to screw them over - lots of money is currently wasted on building maintance that is unnessaccery.

I would have an appointment reminder system that emailed patients/phoned them a week/day before depending on prefernce. I know there are security issues here with patient records but I am confident that they are not insermountable. I also have issues with how they are digatizing the medical records but thats another story... All I can think is that I currently have over half the records from the pregnancy missing and as the hospital technically doesn't exist anymore I doubt they will ever be recovered so the only copy of alot of stuff is what me and Alaric made copies of and its not like it was minor stuff :/

Well thats all of the top of my head and there are probably lots of problems I havent accounted for etc...

Water Fowl – a Grand day out (by sarah)

Way back in the fog that was last year we had a day out at Slimbrigde Waterfowl Sactuary, becuase of everything that happen I never got round to posting this and as a result I've sort of forgotten what half the birds are :/

We went along with Alaric's friends Ben and Jenny who have membership and so had a vachour to get us in cheap. It was a really nice and slightly too hot day.

These are Himalayian geese.

This is a Goose.

A coot, a bird that I always get to wind my cousins up about it being their surname 🙂

More geese.

This is a picture of the birds grooming.

This is a Moorhen

A black swan which I think was from Australia.

This one is a white swan.

Flammingos, they had I think at least three types there and this has resulted in me writing a childrens story thing that I just need to do the illstrations for. The food pellets of the Flamingos contain the carrotine they need to remain pink. They also have gay flamingos that hatch spare eggs 🙂

There where lots of chicks and duckling and in this case sygnets 🙂

I also found out that the southern hemisphere doesn't have any true geese they are instead basically shell ducks - one of these photos is of such a 'goose' but I can't remember which :/

We also went into the hatchery and got to look at all the baby birds which was great and really instructive some of the birds where so sweet and other pretty I have to say the smell of rotten fish from the flamingo enclosers was a bit over powering but it was a really nice day out.

Feeling yuck (by sarah)

Hmmm Christmas plus birthday plus accidentle ingestion of cows milk has resulted in me loosing wieght a bit too quickly once again, ulcers bleeding and I think its even managed to act up the arthritis - can arthritis be an allergic reaction too food? I am once again suffering the mild affects of anemia as well - with nose bleeds, blurred visoun, palpatations and the like.

I think its time for another trip to the doctors as things are obviously complicated by the pain killers I am taking etc...

Of course it could all be stress...

Yesturday I ended up in bed alot and so am feeling that I have achieved very little. Sorry to be winging yet agian but I thought I should explain why I haven't/wont be making it to alot of stuff in the next week. (Sunil I am really really sorry about your birthday).

Soya Stupidity (by sarah)

Currently suffering from having drunk cows milk in abundance I recalled that I wanted to write about what I think of as Soya Stupidity.

Now I tend to order drinks with soya milk when out becuase the chances of them having goats milk is remote and the only other non-diary option they normally offer is Rice Milk which I really can't stand (Jean loves the stuff). To my utter astonishment I have ended up with drinks made with soya with cream ontop :/ For me this completely defeats the point, but several times now in different coffee shops I have been told that poeple generally do want the cream and they have been shouted at for assuming that the person doesn't want the cream. They get shouted out far less just adding the cream unless you specifically say you dont want it.

This seems bizar to me as all the reasons I can think off for using soya milk would seem to me to render the use of cream a bad thing - to wit:

• You are vegan and therefore do not consume any animal products including cream.
• You have a food intolerance or other health problem that means diary products make you sick - this would I'd have thought made the cream probably worse for you than just having the drink made with cows milk without the cream?
• You are watching your diet either for weight lose or something like cholesterol control - again this would all surelly be voided by the presance of the cream

The only thing I can think of is that some people prefer the taste of soya milk but still like cream - personally I hat the taste of cream unless it is the pretend foam stuff in squirty cans and was always disappointed when things turned out to have real whipped cream on them.

It is an odd situation I feel.

Feast Meeting and where it may lead (by sarah)

So tonight I sat in the AGM of the Village Feast Commity - they organise the deer roast in the summer and the blues night ect... that we have unceromoneously dragged people too 😉

The out come of this? I want to make a website containing the history of the village feast as we have just been given a second archive in two years including programmes and stuff, I think I have possibly been press ganged into a chior and an art class - Sarah looks at her busy life and think - hmmmmm....

Still the choir would share weeks with the writting class which would be cool as it wouldn't mean giving up yet another night, it is gaspel choir and I am still a bit in two minds about it all. I really miss singing but I dont really like sticking to one type of singing. The actual village choir is very very coral and a gospel choir I assume just does gospel? I really miss the Haverning Youth Choir with its diversity from Magrigals to african chants, through in a bit of jazz and folk and I'm almost happy - well as long as I have access to my guitar and my Tori Amos music book not to mention the Nivana one. These choirs dont cost anything to belong to which is a bonus - I am a bit nervous of making commitements on Tuesday and Thursday nights as I am hoping to go back to college and they are the nights of the actual lectures you have to attend.

The art class you do have to pay for but is actually held in the farm just up the hill from us, it is a course rather than a perminant thing but the financial cost has me umming and ahhing at the moment.

Oh for a time dialation machine and a money press :/