There was a interesting article in the Guardian G2 section a week or so ago about words and their origins. Did you know that the word chortle was created by Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking Glass? He blended chuckle and snort to come up with that one.
We have Dr Seuss to thank for the word nerd. There are lots more in the article and if you’re interested you can read the full article here.
And if like me you’ve been exasperated by the constant slagging off which the National Health Service has been getting over the past few years you will be pleased to see that the NHS has been declared the world’s best healthcare system by an international panel of experts. You can read the article here.
Sadly the powers that be have been taking every opportunity to attack the jewel in our crown. Obviously they intend to say that the system is broken beyond repair and will use that as an excuse to sell the NHS off.
Nothing is perfect but I know plenty of people who have had wonderful care from the NHS and also know people who have been completely let down by private care. They are after all only interested in making money out of you.
Thank goodness for the NHS – I’m one who has had excellent care and so has my husband! I do hope it won’t be sold off.
Margaret,
We should all be out in the streets demonstrating if they try to sell it off, (is that why Boris has bought water cannon?!) but I think it will happen quietly, bit by bit and before you know it there’ll be more private sections than NHS.
No system is perfect. The media only wants to focus on the small percentage of negative though. And the politicians use it either way for what ever benefits them at the time.
Peggy,
I think the politicians and their staff are feeding the media and manipulating the public, well they’re trying to do that here anyway.
I’m another who has had excellent service from the NHS, in fact I probably wouldn’t be here now, if it hadn’t been for the treatment I have had in the past. It would have been astronomically expensive. I think the problem now is partly that the system is being abused by a good number of people, and also that the concept of a National Health Service didn’t foresee how far technology would develop over a relatively short time. Compare 1948 with 2014! Some type of reform of the system is necessary now, but I do hope they don’t sell it off to the private sector.
Evee,
I don’t quite buy the argument that all the medical advances are making the NHS as we know it impossible. There seems to be endless amounts of money for all these wars which we’ve been involved in recently, all such a waste of money and lives. It’s about time that the politicians stopped trying to behave as if we still had an empire.