I was listening to an interview on the radio this morning, it was somewhere in Ireland, a dispute was going on between consultants and some sort of authority. I am not a genius but when the interviewer asked the consultant why MRI scans didn't work thoughout the night and the consultant answered saying patients needed to have their rest.....and no-one was available to operate the machine. I thought....
If I was ill and needing an MRI scan and they said they could fit me in at 3 a.m. I would be there like a shot. What is wrong with these people, do they live in the real world. It was brought to everyone's attention that the expensive machinery laid un-used at night when if a simple rosta for the people operating it was made up it could be utilized 24 hours.
And as for paying for medication, certain patients living in the wrong area of Britain being refused expensive treatment, how about the pharmaceutical companies who make millions of pounds off the backs of sick people chipping in to help out. People who invent new medicines should be paid a wage like everyone else, it is impossible to spend the amount of money they are making, allowing people to die because they can't afford the cost of life saving drugs. And we are supposed to be living under the National Health.
Roger wrote...
Radical stuff there, Vicki! Love this blog. You make a very, very good point about the MRI machine, and it is such a simple idea, really. Obviously there is no will, so there is no way, and people's health has to suffer as a result of not wanting to organise things in better way. A scandal really. About the only thing I can think of is that an MRI machine (and other limited machines and facilities) wouldn't always be able to work flat out for 24-hours of each day as there would be some maintenance work needed on stuff from time to time, but apart from that, these resources should be working flat out and I totally agree with you. Mind you, you can get an MRI done within a couple of days if you flash the dough, which is another sickening thing when we supposed to have, and are paying for, a National Health Service.
Don't get me started on the pharmaceutical companies. The billions upon billions they make out of ill health is immoral. Yes, they put a fair amount of money into research, but the drugs they come up with become nothing short of a licence to print money. Millions died of AIDS in poor parts of the world because of drug companies patents on potential treatments which priced the drugs beyond their reach. And what do us voting people do about it? Nothing.
By the way, drug companies make more than 500% more profit on average than other companies listed in Fortune 500 (2002 figures).
In 2002, Pfizer made 9,100,000,000 dollars profit, which works 25,000,000 dollars of pure profit per day! 25 million dollars a day, after all costs, taxes and everything! The pharmaceutical companies' profit dwarfs that made in other business sectors. And of any money these companies spend on developing a drug is outweighed by a ratio of 10 to 1. In other words, for every dollar invested on research and development, 10 dollars will be made! Wish I could find a way to make 10 bucks on something that only cost me a buck to develop.
Posted by: Roger | January 26, 2008 5:25 AM