A view from the waiting room of the realities of NHS staffing
The week through the eyes of our columnists
IT’S AMAZING what you learn when you spend three hours waiting in an A&E department. I had occasion to visit our local hospital last week with my daughter, Lizzie, who had banged her wrist at school.
As we sat there in the paediatric waiting room, I fell into conversation with several other women.
One lady was anxious because she had been obliged to come out of work to bring her son, who had a bump on his head. Time was ticking by.
She huffed and puffed and kept looking at the clock.
“Don’t blame the doctors,” said a young woman beside her. “At this time there will be only two on. And that is for the whole A&E department.” It turned out that this young woman worked in a care home for the elderly when she wasn’t accompanying her little sister to casualty with a suspected broken arm.
Tuesday, October 18:
Andrew Vine
CYCLING at this time of year is always a little more hair-raising than I’d like.
Even with a full set of lights on the bike, front and back, and a high-vis jacket, the dark mornings and early dusk are testing times to be on the road.
Drivers still groggy from bed or worn out after a day at work and a crawling commute home through the rain often shave that bit too close for comfort as they pass.
I’ve long believed that in order to drive a car safely when sharing the road with cyclists, those behind the wheel should have tried their luck on a bike.
Wednesday, October 19: Bernard Ingham
SEVEN WORDS – “There is no such thing as society” – still haunt me 30 years on.
The Left, and archbishops, still cite them as evidence of Margaret Thatcher’s “uncaring” nature. Bunkum. When read in context, or heard in person, it is an unexceptional idea that individuals should take responsibility for their lives and not just fall back on the state.
Thursday, October 20: Nick Baines
I OFFER this statement by the German theologian Jürgen Moltmann in a book that I finished reading on the train today: “A free society is not an accumulation of independent individuals; it is a community of persons in solidarity.”
I quote this because the same might equally be applied to nations. It bears repetition that the language and discourse of the referendum – shamelessly, in my view, fuelled by misrepresentations and misleading promises, now apparently acceptable in a so-called “post-factual” world – paid little or no attention to the needs or securities of our international neighbours.
Friday, October 21: Bill Carmichael
ACCORDING TO the advice given to political leaders by the 15th century Italian philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli “it is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both”. But what happens if you are neither?
The thought struck me watching the unedifying spectacle of the final US Presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton that took place in the early hours of Thursday morning.
The excerpts I watched weren’t so much highlights as lowlights, with a degree of nastiness and personal attacks that – even in the rough and tumble of politics – we have rarely witnessed in the past. Has there ever been two more deeply unimpressive and unlikeable people vying for the most powerful job in the world?