Dingle cottage June 2015

I have returned!!


After almost a year u have for various reasons, which I'll explain soon, I have decided to contribute to my blog again!!

The National Health Service 2015

I haven't had a rant on these pages for some time, & for that I apologise. I've gotten into the Facebook thing you see and if you, dear reader wish find & add me as a 'friend' please feel free to do so.
Anyway I feel compelled to rant about the present state of the NHS in the UK. I believe that I'm well qualified to do so having worked in the service since 1971.

We as nurses are, (to use a phase used in World War 1) "Lions led by donkeys". The number of absurd changes brought about for no apparent reason are unspeakable. In my time as a nurse I have witnessed countless reports from so called independent bodies whose remit was to 'improve' the service. In fact all they did was to create further chaos & establish (with each new report)  another level of management.
At ward level the day to day functioning of care/ service is awful. Senior nurse mangers are appointed from staff with no managerial skills. The organisation is poorly led, meetings follow meetings, millions of pounds sterling are wasted annually by health care trust whilst care in my observation is decreasing. The computer has sadly become the new patient.
I my base, there are no facilities to have a hot meal. We have a kettle for nursing staff use. The hospital has not got a canteen/restaurant for staff to take a break & lunch is frequently take whilst typing up notes or else lunch breaks are missed. Did you think that sweat shop working conditions were only limited to the 3rd world??
The service is utterly disorganised.
Whilst MP's are about to award themselves a £7k pay rise nurses haven't had a pay raise for over 5 years! Rather in real terms we have had pay cuts.
I have no idea what the solution is to the problems I have illustrated,  other than employ managers who are trained as managers & not as nurses but who have initially had experience in nursing.
Any ides anyone??


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Overkill/play...

I like my music, & I must emphasis MY music-for reasons which will become plain later, I like blues, a bit of rock & classical. I like to listen to CD's, records & the radio. In fact I leave the radio on each time I go out as I don't like the feeling of returning to an empty house when Kate et are at work etc

But lately I've found that it appears as though everywhere there is music playing. Its overkill. You have to hold on a telephone line to be connected & you hear some God awful jingle that drives me to the brink of insanity.
You pas a car on the High Street, its windows wide open and the driver has his music blaring out at unrecognisable decibels. Why these drivers believe that you may wish to hear there often mindless boom-boom din is beyond me. You go into any supermarket & they have what appears to be their own radio station playing often accompanied by some subliminal advertisement to buy a product that the store is currently selling Grrr...!!
You get in a life/elevator &... they have music playing. You sit on the bus and ten to one the guy next to you has a headset on &...yes...you can hear his bloody music. I don't wanna hear it!!
 I could go on & on...
Where does this belief that everyone wishes to hear music publicly come from? I've noticed it creeping into our daily life more & more each year.
What's wrong with a bit of quiet when were out?
For God's sake don't kill music by overplaying it.

fears Leave

I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.

Why the hell do they want to know all this stuff???

What the hell is going on in this country at the moment??  We wanted to take out a small insurance policy that pays out maybe £10K should one or the other of us die. We naively thought that we'd be able to pay out a fixed sum monthly in order to facilitate this.
 Simple...you would think. Oh no....
We went to see the insurance fellow at our bank Santander, I was asked for photo id, and for a detailed breakdown of our financial incomings & outgoings each month!
I don't believe that its neither his, nor Santander's damn business how much money we have coming into Woolley Grange each month nor what we spend our money on.  Is this a 'Big Brother'state or what people? He can just shut the fuck up! Incidentely, I did not supply him with the information &, after telling him politely  why I would not be supplying the required information, I bade him "good day" & left. he, sat there during this diatribe nodding in an empathetic manner whilst smiling at me in a patronising way
Git.

Dingle.