While I think it hugely admirable that a veteran in Britain has staggered up and down his garden for weeks now, in order to raise money for charity, I can't help wondering why a nation's health system should need charitable fundraising. Captain Tom Moore should be saluted for raising millions of pounds - and I suppose the Duke of Westminster should also be congratulated for his sudden impulse to chuck some of his small change, (when compared to his actual income, that is what several million is in fact for him) into the collection box.
But why give to the NHS when the entire tax paying population of the United Kingdom is already contributing hugely to it? I can't imagine anyone in Australia thinking that Medicare needs to be handed, out of our own pockets, millions more, over and above what our government provides for it, via us. Indeed, is there another nation besides Britain that would applaud its citizens hurling money at its government-run health system? Wouldn't the sensible reaction be to ask whether it is a good system if it requires so much fundraising - or whether perhaps it is an insane way to organise health care and, on top of that, an insane way that is also exceptionally badly run? Additionally, if you accept the idea of raising money to help the government run something, why not also start collections for greater numbers of police to patrol the streets, more teachers to reduce class sizes - indeed, why not abolish taxes and just run the country out of charitable donations alone?
Perhaps I am too jaundiced in my view of the National Health Service. One reason for this is that I volunteered for a couple of years in a London hospital and the money I saw wasted there on managerial salaries, management strategies, new management systems et cetera, beggared belief - and the neverending parade of managerial tweaks and adjustments meant constant distraction from the actual job in hand, which is making sick people better.
Another reason for my lack of blind NHS faith is that two of my nearest and dearest would have been left for dead before ever getting diagnosed, let alone treated, had they not switched to the private system - and indeed a third, whose misguided principles led him to insist that he would never under any circumstances go private, is dead as a doornail as a result. Waiting times and general dilatoriness did for him, it later transpired; if only he had paid and got seen more quickly, all would have been well, it was explained.
But the NHS is Britain's religion now. People praise its staff for taking care of them, as though taking care of people is over and above the normal call of their duty, rather than the minimum that one might expect. Even this week, when people in the army, called in to assist, have raised alarms about how disgustingly incompetently the NHS system of distribution is run, no one's faith seems to be shaken.
I will stick to Christianity for the time being, and pray that the huge numbers who worship the NHS blindly will not end up disappointed or worse.
Amen.
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