BMA

What is it about too many doctors that makes them think they know better than the rest of us? That somehow they are an elite that the rest of us should bow down before? A lot of them are not even very good at diagnosis (I know too many people who have died because their cancer was not diagnosed until too late) so why should they be able to tell us that the proposed reforms of the NHS are unacceptable? Are doctors good businessmen? Do they have a skill that enables them to run a huge organisation like the NHS? I would doubt that anyone has that skill. If the NHS is not to be broken up, as it should be, into manageable and competing entities then reforms to improve its enormous inefficiencies and waste should be encouraged by everyone. What the government had been proposing may not be ideal but it has been well thought through and will at least achieve some benefit for both taxpayers and users. Silly me I forgot - it may inconvenience some of those employed in the NHS and even result in a reduction of employees. I have visited the Marsden hospital a couple of times in the last two weeks and have been surprised at the over-staffing of blood takers and, it has to be said, nurses in the out patients department, more than you see in a private hospital. Furthermore I was not impressed by the quality of some of the staff compared with those who work in the private sector. The BMA is very effective at tugging at people's heart strings but it is nonetheless only a trade union and its role in promoting itself and its members to the detriment of those of us who pay its members and use their services must be exposed.