Post 404. HERE COME THE OPPORTUNISTS.

OR, IN THE VERNACULAR.

THE GREEDY BASTARDS.

They have had their eyes on the NHS ever since its inception and now, using the pandemic as reason, our populist government is publicly showing the truth of its concern for the great British public: it proposes inviting private healthcare firms (and how many MPs have 'advisory' roles, pals, shares, in them?) to take another generous helping from the NHS purse.

There is nothing new in this: private contracting has covertly taken place for years, but the current climate has enabled the acquisitive bastards to justify their greed, and there is now no disguising the privatized foot in the door. The excuse is the enormous backlog of patients awaiting hospital treatment, much of it surgical, in wake of the pandemic. NHS hospitals on their own, the crystal ball holders claim, will be quite unable to cope. So stand by for a flurry of expensively subsidized 'private' NHS care. Watch as the opportunistic new 'providers' unctuously undermine years of dedicated health care provided by NHS staff whose calling has gifted them scant remuneration and the requirement to pay parking fees in hospital grounds.

As for the PM:

"Our NHS," eh?

Who does the pernicious little prick think he is kidding? Given the chance, he and his cunning cronies will turn it back into an American-style (or pre 1948 British) health insurance bonanza before you can so much as say 'is there a doctor in the house?'
ALONG WITH THAT
Tried signing on with a dentist as a NHS patient recently? The majority of dental surgeries will politely tell you to bugger off. Business, my dears, has determinedly bypassed bureaucracy. It started to happen way before the pandemic and those of us who are the NHS patients of a dentist now remain so only out of our dental practitioner's kindness of heart. When we privileged folk are gone there will probably be no more family dentistry obtainable under NHS arrangements: the only place where such treatment may be found will be in increasingly overcrowded hospitals run by increasingly untrustworthy Trusts. Well, gullible Brit, you didn't think the incessant reorganization of 'our NHS' since 1974 was for your benefit, did you? Get real.
BUT THERE ARE STILL GENEROUS PEOPLE.

ROZ'S CHILDHOOD FRIEND WENDY.

Wendy, who recently visited here from Brighton (Post 402 refers) works in the Sussex Police Communications Department. Her palpable sadness over Roz's death moved us deeply and when she went back home we were in no doubt that she would seek a means of expressing her thanks to the health staff who unremittingly serve those beset by cancer. Now we learn that Wendy's colleagues have handed her £160 (an entire £1 per head mufti day collection) to donate to the Macmillan Nurses charity in Roz's name. Our heartfelt thanks to Wendy and those generous Sussex police colleagues.
THAT'S ALL FOR NOW.
Don't go too far. We may want to speak to you again.
(What police TV show didn't that come from?)