From the Man Cave XXIII

I am sitting in the man cave besieged by a legion of brass monkeys, wearing two face masks and praying that my GP will not have run out of flu jabs before I can get down there and roll my sleeves up. We are entering – indeed we may already be in the midst of – the worst flu epidemic ever. Just like the last one, the one before that and the one before that.

I got back from working in Hong Kong at the weekend to hear that, once again, the NHS is ‘overwhelmed’; just like it was last winter, the winter before that and the one before that. The NHS, unique amongst industries, is the only one that complains about having the opportunity to do its job. Those running the NHS seem perpetually astonished when patients turn up asking for treatment.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I have never in my 70 years on this earth heard any other industry complain about being overwhelmed. Has the car manufacturing industry ever complained about being overwhelmed by the demand for cars? Did coal miners ever complain about being overwhelmed by the amount of coal they had to dig out of the ground? Have shopkeepers ever complained of being overwhelmed by the number of customers turning up for the New Year sales?

Strangely, the inaccurately named Border ‘Force’ never complains about being overwhelmed by the number of people stepping out of dinghies and charging up the beaches at Dover, although they clearly cannot handle it. No, only the NHS gets ‘overwhelmed’.

As referred to, I have just returned from Hong Kong where people are dropping like flies with flu – including doctors and nurses. But there is never a word about hospitals being overwhelmed or unable to cope. In the United States, hospitals are reporting ‘significant strain’ due to the current flu epidemic, but I have not heard of them being overwhelmed.

Perhaps this is due to the largely private medical system that operates there; if there is money to be made then the last message you want to convey is that you can’t cope. You’d be expected to manage the situation. Lessons to be learned by the NHS, perhaps, which constantly demands more of our hard-earned income, which continues to underperform, and responds to crises by stuffing its upper echelons with more highly paid diversity and inclusion officers.

Hernia update

Thanks for asking; and this is not unconnected to the above. My initial plans to go private for a hernia operation (hernia developed in July) went for a Burton when I discovered, after many weeks of not hearing from the hospital, that the surgeon no longer did private work there. That is where I left readers who, I presume, are breathless to hear the next instalment. I was duly assigned to another surgeon who I then discovered was not covered by my insurance company. We are now saving £3k annually having cancelled our policy.

But the story has a final twist (no pun intended, given I have a hernia). Having texted my GP, an altogether excellent chap with whom I am on first name terms, asking to be referred to the NHS, I now have an appointment for surgery. It is with the second surgeon to whom he referred me, and, at the expense of the NHS, the surgery will be performed at the local private hospital. Try as I may, I simply could not have made that one up.

Given that I fly nearly every month and airlines are a bit sensitive about people’s entrails oozing out of freshly inflicted surgical incisions, I cannot have the surgery until April, by which time I’ll have been to Genoa, Prague and Hong Kong. My hernia now has a separate air miles account with British Airways.

Endnote

Yours truly was invited for the first time, after over twenty years of working in Hong Kong, to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club. Monthly membership costs more than annual membership of my own club, The Royal Scots Club, but I did feel that I was among ‘my people’ there. Every waking minute is now devoted to scheming for another invitation next time I am in Hong Kong.

‘And what am I doing this week?’, I hear you ask. Well, if you must know, along with an occasional columnist for TNC, grandson Jack Watson, I’ll be at the Free Speech Union Comedy Benefit in London followed by lunch courtesy of Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Sceptic, Lord Young of Acton, along with staff and other contributors. Lucky me!

Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.

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