Cardiff & Vale Universally Inept Health Board

NHS counts cost of OAP 'binge-drinkers' - Echo 17.12.2012

Olivia Goldhill must have had a chuckle writing this story.  We've heard NHS Wales and the Cardiff & Vale Universally Inept Health Board bleating on about how they haven't got any money, and that it's all OUR fault, but this latest revelation is a beaut - "it's the under 16s and over 60s binge-drinking that's to blame for poor health services." Finally, we are getting to the bottom of our health service problems.

They trot out excuses like a Gatling gun firing bullets; "We have an unusually high flu rate this year", " More and more people go to A & E Instead of their doctors", "Resources are stretched to the limit due to an abnormally high number of inpatients", "It's the bed-blocking that's ruining us ( Delayed Transfer of Care )", "We can't recruit the right numbers of doctors/nurses/technicians" in order to meet the unexpectedly high number of patients requiring our services", "Patients are bringing sickness and diarhorea into the wards, as well as M.R S A. and c-deficile and athletes foot" etc etc ad nauseum.  Every year we hear the same load of crap that is supposed to explain why the Health Board and NHS Wales couldn't organise a gang-bang in a brothel, and why no one in the Welsh Government knows what a 'Budget' or a 'Plan' is, let alone how to set one and then control the damn thing.

It's past being a farce, especially when you see the huge salaries of Directors, Board members, Managers ( well, that's what they're called, anyway ) that are nearly all in six figures. Yet, WE are told that services have to be cut back because it's our bleedin' fault !  The result being that all services have ( or are ) rationalised and centralised, in order that we shall be bestowed with a health service that is 'Fit for purpose' ( whatever that means ).  More people will die at home, or in an ambulance during the four hours it takes to reach a hospital.

We been told people are too obese, people eat too much or the wrong foods, we all drink too much - which brings me ( neatly ) to this article that, says that it's the oldies - that are going out to the Pole dance clubs and getting 'elephant's trunk' - that are costing the NHS much money and affecting services.

So then, let's put all the under 16's and over 60s in Angelsey ( sorry butt - Ynus Mon ) and make it an alcohol-free zone.  They'll be so busy trying to learn the Welsh language that they probably will lose the will to live by the time they learn the national anthem and the names of all the bilingual signs and notices.

If I wasn't crying, I'd be laughing, but the incompetence of our health services managers is well beyond a joke, by now.   R. W.