Not because of her name, which no one had ever heard of, but more because of the astounding reality that McCain actually picked someone from Alaska, who he did not know. And only met one time. Yes the "woman from Alaska", now has a chance if elected to be second in command to the President of the United States. The "woman from Alaska" some say has tremendous experience. I don't believe the "woman from Alaska", has met with Senator McCain more than once. The "woman from Alaska" has no foreign policy experience.

And what does this say about John McCain's judgment and his thought process? McCain is a loose cannon. He cannot follow direction or a script and he is very impulsive. Yet he is ready from day one to lead this country? Do we really want to put this country in the hands of a loose cannon and the "woman from Alaska"? John McCain's thought process is flawed and he is not ready to lead this country.

I was and am still in a bad way. Things are moving and warping. My power cord began snaking around and my lamp began to wave. I spent a lot of last night/this morning running my fingers over the pills in their blisters. Right now I'm hating myself for not taking them.

After a 180 minute wait, I managed to see my GP with the packets in tow. (If this seems like a long wait - which it is by their standards - the place I go to, holds open surgery with only 2 days on offer for appointments). I was his last patient so time wasn't too limited. Went in. Sat down. I couldn't look at him. I mumbled something about needing a prescription for when I'm over in Australia. He asked whether I wanted the Zopiclone. I told him my mum said I couldn't. "But you're 17". Then me with my shrinking voice; "I can't be trusted". And I can't. Last night I was sat with my legs dangling over the edge of to be or not to be and now I've given up my exit, I've thrown myself off the edge and found a safety net holding me back. I need to find something to cut it away.

We didn't really say much about the numerous boxes I placed on his desk. He just told me that he was glad that I'd handed them over and we talked about Australia for a while. I've come away feeling the same as before I went in but now minus my way out. Entrapment has locked on to my head.

This is where the title enters. Once home, fed and back in my pyjamas, my mum asked me and my sister to do the hoovering. I was in the kitchen when I rolled over my mums shoe lace and the Dyson decided to eat it. Cue alot of horrible noise and me screaming while pounding at the off button to no avail. In the end my sister pulled the plug and the horrible noise stopped. This was enough to push me too far. I'm aware this will sound over dramatic as will the following comment, but I'm fragile at the moment. I ran away from the hoover, curled up on the floor and proceeded to laugh quite hysterically while crying for the oppertunity lost last night. I couldn't breathe properly between the gasping sobs and disjointed giggling. I was on the floor for over an hour, while my mum and sister watched in disbelief and mopped the floor around me. It sounds like some crass film scene. I could reference to the "screaming but no one can hear me" cliche but I'm pretty sure everyone could hear me. They just didn't know what to do about it so carried on as normal.

Since the kitchen floor, tiredness has again washed over me. I'm considering a nap. Regressing back to safe childhood. You have a tantrum, cuddle mummy and take a quick kip on the sofa.

I can't see anyway out of this bottomless pit.

]]> http://rainbowpodsquad.wordpress.com/?p=1422 Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:17:43 +0000 Tom in Thailand http://rainbowpodsquad.wordpress.com/?p=1422

Welcome to Episode 9!  I'm going to have to apologize first because I didn't prepare any show notes at all for this episode.  I thought I would do things a little different and attempt to ad lib this episode, so have a listen and see how it turned out.  Also, was just to plain tired and I mostly just talk about personal stuff like my ordeal with the doctors this week, work, and one cultural difference between Thai and western cultures that  seems odd to the western mind.  At least my mind anyways, so please have a listen and  I will put out another more organized episode this weekend.  Please!!! send me your emails and comments as i really value each and everyone of them i receive.  Also feel free to send along an audio message if you feel so inclinded and I'll play it on the show.  Much love to you and talk again soon!

For Direct Download: Right Click Here | The Freak Network | The RainbowPodSquad

Subscribe to Tom in Thailand in Itunes: Click here

[audio http://media.libsyn.com/media/tominthailand/T.I.T._Podcast_9-Rank_and_Status.mp3]

Welcome to Episode 9!  I'm going to have to apologize first because I didn't prepare any show notes at all for this episode.  I thought I would do things a little different and attempt to ad lib this episode, so have a listen and see how it turned out.  Also, was just to plain tired and I mostly just talk about personal stuff like my ordeal with the doctors this week, work, and one cultural difference between Thai and western cultures that  seems odd to the western mind.  At least my mind anyways, so please have a listen and  I will put out another more organized episode this weekend.  Please!!! send me your emails and comments as i really value each and everyone of them i receive.  Also feel free to send along an audio message if you feel so inclinded and I'll play it on the show.  Much love to you and talk again soon!

For Direct Download: Right Click Here | The Freak Network | The RainbowPodSquad

Subscribe to Tom in Thailand in Itunes: Click here

[audio http://media.libsyn.com/media/tominthailand/T.I.T._Podcast_9-Rank_and_Status.mp3]

1. thenonconformer, on August 27th, 2008 Said:

   You can start first by putting all the crooked politicians, crooked cops, crooked civil and public servants in Canada permanently in jail where they all belong firstly too.

2. lailayuile, on August 28th, 2008  Said:

   Well, sir, that would certainly make for an even more overloaded system. That's why we need more civic minded people running for office, people that are citizens and deal with this everyday. i think often that those with power are so isolated from the average joe, and they become wrapped up in their own agendas and goals, forgetting why they moved into politics in the first place.

3. thenonconformer, on August 28th, 2008  Said:

   Put more of the tax payers money abusers in prison and we will have enough money next to pay for the prison, for the amount they have abused already always far exceeds what it costs to put them into prison,.

   More honest fools running for office will not change anything next..

   We elected honest Harper and he turned out to be another liar..

   Power , money, fame corrupts.. and their adultery, alcoholism is already a sure sign we have the wrong persons in public office now too.

   Here is what I know works best the exemplary public exposure and prosecution of the bad guys serves everyone’s best interest including the next person who takes office, for it really serves as a warning to him or her not to do wrong..

   instead everyone tends to cover-ups, cover it up like they falsely   still deny the sins of too many crooked cops and crooked pastors now still too..

   http://lailayuile.wordpress.com/2008/08/19/toughersentencescom-protect-our-communities-by-keeping-criminals-in-jail/

Rating:

Complications is a "distinguished debut essay collection by a surgical resident and staff writer for the New Yorker" (from bn.com).

Commentary: I finished reading this on August 10th... about 3 weeks ago and never got around to writing the review, so my memories on it are a little hazy.

Suffice to say that it was a great and fascinating read. Some highlights:

-necrotizing fasciitis (or flesh-eating bacteria)
-pain experiments (female dancers, especially ballet dancers, have the highest pain tolerance)
-morbid obesity
-anxiety and burnout for doctors
-medical conventions (I thought this one particularly humorous)

Highly recommended.

Look at my bruiser.

Monday morning, at about 6 am, Charlie was running from the bathroom back to the bedroom when he tripped and landed on the corner of our wooden bed frame, with his forehead.

It bled. A lot.

The cut was so deep I couldn't bear to look at it without wincing.

So we took him to the ER, where he was a very cooperative patient, up until the surgeon began stitching his head. (I can't say as I blame him, surgeons are notorious for their poor bedside manner. This one was no different. He kept saying, "It's okay. It's okay." as blood spewed from my baby's forehead. That was so not okay.)

He got four deep stitches and eight exterior stitches. He had a black eye and a swollen "boo-boo" that gave him a headache.

But he was up for donuts soon after the stitches, and hasn't complained at all about changing his bandage once daily (at least).

That's my bruiser.

Of course, now my heart beats way too fast every time he runs, even when it's in the middle of an open green field, like this afternoon.

I had to bite my tongue to keep from yelling, "Don't run!" Because the park, of all places, is the place to run.

I hope we both recover from those stitches.

He asked about how she is and after a few questions told her that she is depressed. She laughed and said it's a meaningless word. He asked about the sleep study, which was to have happened on the 25th, Monday --- we canceled. We had food poisoning. It's been re-scheduled for mid-September.

Actually he asked about the doctor who says he can get us off of Seroquel. When Eight met with the neurologist who specializes in sleep and sleep disorders, she told him we can no longer sleep without taking Seroquel, that we have become dependent upon it, and he told her he could help with that. This is stunningly good news, if true. I don't think our psychiatrist sees it that way.

Zoe told him that I'd wanted very much to speak with him last week, so he could tell me to take the Seroquel and I could be a good girl and obey. That is true. She wondered aloud why I wanted him to say that if I already knew that's what he'd say. That's a good point. I guess I just wanted it to be someone else's responsibility that I felt so awful, or that I'd choose to remedy that feeling by gumming up my own brain. I'm not proud of it, and I would not have mentioned it to him.

He said he'd be happy to tell me that. Then they had a rather heated discussion about Seroquel. He keeps telling us we need to do more research, we need to look up the meanings of words (honestly, that's just insulting), wonders aloud where we could possibly be getting our information. (I emailed him links, so this is a rhetorical question meant to convey that only crazy or stupid people could possibly be "telling us this stuff.")

I wish she had not brought it up, made an opening for this argument to happen, but then from the sound of it maybe he needed to say the things he said. I would prefer that the Seroquel question not be central to our conversations with him. He's not going to change our minds, not with the arguments he's using (he did say the mood disorder, carefully unspecified, we suffer from is like diabetes --- I might have laughed at that if the conversation weren't spiraling out of control by then) and the research he seems to be referring to. We are certainly not going to change his.

He wanted to know if we knew the percentage of people who wind up with the really bad brain-damage sorts of outcomes from taking Seroquel, to which she replied it has not been in use long enough to really know, but that the risk decreases to near zero when not taking the drug at all.

He told her we aren't going to live that long. That "the disease" is stronger than we are. That without the drug, or some drug, we will be dead.

She gasped, or I did, and she began to cry. He seemed to decide since he'd gone that far, to say everything he was thinking in that vein, and he did. That was how the session ended.

Zoe was distraught. If there were going to be a day she'd throw herself from the building, yesterday would probably have been that day.

He thinks we don't sleep, incidentally, because we are crazy, not because years of this powerful antipsychotic have destroyed our natural capacity to do so. He said we will always need a drug to sleep.

In fact, always was a theme. He said too many things happened to us, were done to us, and that it caused permanent changes. "And that's for life," he said.

I think we are frightening him. We always have, and everything he believes about mental illness in general and us in particular points to.... I guess to death. To tragedy. I think he sees us as so damaged, whatever the drugs --- he did mention polypharmacy elsewhere in the conversation, so I don't think it's Seroquel alone or even necessarily in particular he's pressing --- do to us is necessary for even our short-term survival, and long-term is I guess not something that needs to be fussed over. And that makes me very sad. I think we are more than that. But maybe I am wrong.

Rome did try, more than once, to kill us all, on what he believes was his watch. I think that was quite literally traumatic for him and he doesn't want to go there again. So I think I understand why he is afraid.

He mentioned that the Supreme Court has said we have a right to "stay sick" and that chilled me. That sounds just a bit like a threat.

He said medication is all there is.

If something is going to kill us it will be that medication is all there is.

Rosemarie

Public service worker bashing sends an onimous odour of disregard and disrespect to the ordinary working person who pays their taxes. Sending jobs elsewhere that could have and should have been done at home sends out a message of disregard and disrespect to the ordinary worker. Think laboratory tests!

Across the Atlantic, Bush's policies may have led the greedy to capitalise on the worst sides of capitalism, but the Democrats will bring a more balanced approach which figures in the concept of equity once again. A more truthful America might emerge from the legacy of ultimate spin that Bernaise began all those years ago. It behoves us all to pay attention to what is happening outside of ourselves as the future sure looks bleak with a Fianna Fail/PD solution. Cut backs and privatistion seems to be the limit of it...need I say more.

A new world thinking which also encompasses developing countries and ourselves needs to be thought through with care and sustainability. Developing countries don't need to make the mistakes we have. The WTO needs to re examine itself, its purpose, goals and its ethics. As we deplete our planet and our resources including its people we will only have ourselves to blame. The highest order creature on the planet needs to reinvent itself and fast. Europeans have an important intellectual role to play in all of this and France with her particular history of 'thinking'  and social public services emphasis is in the position to lead the way. What is the alternative???

I'm really fed up with doctors and co-pays and sly ways they have that they think we don't see.

I realize they're trying to make a living. Business is business, right? I just don't appreciate being treated like an idiot.

Last week we had Mary's eyes examined. Doctor was great! Business sucked.

We have insurance. They cover up to $115.00 on frames. They pay for lenses. They don't pay for any coatings on lenses. Okay. That's fine.

The bill for the glasses Mary picked out pretty much left me speechless last week and I used the ol' stand-by, "I need to discuss this with my husband." to get out of the office without going balistic and screeching, "Are you out of your ever-lovin' mind!" at the woman behind the counter.

My intention was to go home and pull out the encyclopedia size benefits folder that Bill got with his new job and see if I could find written proof of our benefits for eye care. I told Bill about the conversation I had with the 'eye' lady.

'So,' I start. ' The frames are $40.00 more than what's covered. I get that. The lenses are covered. There's a big zero in that column. Where did the charges come from?"

I'm told in her suedo-professional tone that because they're glasses for kids, "we always perscribe these super break resistant lenses that can stand the pressure of superman's temper tantrum and not break. They won't scratch, shatter, splinter, and can be used to tunnel your way out of an avalanche in case of falling rock."

Cool.

They're for reading.

She won't be mountain climbing, fighting with Superman or training for the Olympics with these suckers on.

"Oh, well, I can work it up with regular lenses and give you a price on that."

Hunky Dorey. Give me a call and let me know.

I didn't hear from her until Monday afternoon, where she rattled off a bunch of information over the phone that I really didn't pay attention to after I heard the word 'hundred' included in each of the new prices. I told her I'd come in on Tuesday and take a look.

The bill is still a lot more than it should be. I look it over and tell her to explain it to me.

She continues. "Well, I changed it to regular lenses!"

"So where is all this other money coming from?"

"Well, we have to use THEIR lab, so they charge for beveling and mounting."

So the 60 bucks that covered as 'lenses' doesn't cover beveling and mounting. In other words, they don't smooth out the edges and put them in the frames, they just throw them in an envelope and ship a do-it-yourself eye-glass kit.

I just looked at her and said, "I'll just be taking the perscription."

We left, perscription stuffed in my purse, Mary following behind me, not quite sure what was going on. Once inside the Explorer I exploded.

"The nerve of these people trying to charge for things we don't need and try and smile sweetly to cover their intentions!"

Mary just sat and listened. She's a good listener. I checked myself and then explained (nicely) why I was upset.

Off we went to another place that Bill told me about over by the hospital in Savannah. We found it will little frustration and a quick call to information to get the phone number. I forgot to write down the address, but knew what street it was on.

We walked in and was greeted shortly after. I explained the reason why we were there and he said,

"Oh, we don't take that insurance."

The look of clear confusion was probably very evident and he continued with,

"Unless it's with Gulfstream."

Ah, relief.

"But we don't fill perscriptions written outside of our office."

Ah, crap.

I run through what has happened, trying to keep the temper concealed and the whining out of my voice. The guy says,

"Hang on. Come back here. I think we can work something out."

He came up with a way to get what we needed without going through the insurance.

Then I glanced at the perscription he still held in his hand.

"Is that the strength they perscribed? That's just reader glasses!"

She had told me that she would be giving Mary a very low strength, but I hadn't looked at it as I left the other place. I was upset. I just wanted to get out of there.

Now, I'm even angrier! They were trying to soak us for all that money for temporary glasses that were only to be used when Mary had a lot of reading to do, to excercise her focusing. Not a long term, permanent condition.

I questioned the guy there asking him if there was really any difference in having glasses made with that strength or buying some glasses at the drug store for Mary to use. He assured me they would be the same. I thanked him for his time and information. He said if we couldn't find anything, to let him know, he would still make the glasses for her. For about $60 bucks.

So off we went. On our way home we stopped here and there to look for some readers. Mary was a bit disappointed at not getting the cool, pink frames she found at the first place, but was content with the fact that her Hannah Montana glass case could be used for whatever she had to wear. What a kid.

The next visit to a doctor would be Bill's. I wouldn't have to deal with it. He had an appointment on Wednesday. He asked when he got there if he could pay his co-pay on Friday.

"Sure! But just to let you know, there is a ten dollar late fee if you pay on Friday."

What kind of crap is that! It's a co-pay! A token we're forced to pay on behalf of the insurance company granting us permission to use their services. A late fee?!

It is tough to speak to this problem eloquently, however the issue is that it keeps getting brushed under the rug and this will not go away!

Culprits:

a. Practicioners overbilling: I look at what it cost to bring my baby in so the "doctor could have a look" - she billed the insurance $350.00 for a 3 minute looksie. There was nothing wrong, but yeah, the fear game and my wife being a new mom allowed for this.  Many doctors have made the human body a profit center - extirpating parts that may be deemed cancerous, at risk etc. If it is a woman's breast the chances are that a great deal of fuss will go into it, and why not take out both? How many men get their penises or testicles amputated? What is the ratio of female to male doctors doing this? Unnecessary hysterectomies - another profit center. The list goes on and on...

b. Hospitals overbilling, double billing and just out of control: One can pay $3500-5000 for a midwife, however my wife was not into that - so we go the hospital seeking "natural birth" - end up with a C-Section - the anesthesia (applied in a shitty way) was $4500 plus, overall the cost was around $20K for a three day stay at Mt. Auburn. Was it necessary? Not the point of this particular blog - but many are not - they make more money for the hospital and the practicioners involved.

c. Insurance companies trying to fight back with negotiated solutions. then being accused of chintzing on health care. The public relations nightmare.

d. Ambulance chasing attorneys - lawsuits galore. A separate blog could be dedicated to them, for now I will dedicate two more words: John Edwards.

• How many doctors are going broke?
• How many insurance companies are going broke?
• How many people are enslaved to medical bills or going broke? Aha.

Some solutions -

a. State-sponsored ambulatory care - not necessarily run on the state budget - I envision clinics run by interns, doctors awaiting their license to practice in the U.S., nurses, etc, hired by larger companies. A bucket of sorts.

b. Regulation - this has failed miserably owing to the people regulating. They are inept and powerless if they are not inept.

As you can see - I am unable to provide clear solutions - but a farmer's common sense approach needs to be adopted and we need to stop helping out so many people from overseas for free. This only spreads the burden on us. We must be able to address this problem, as in everything in life, it is a choice - let's choose to have a healthy nation.

Provided to you by holisticwellnessnetwork.com 

Reasons for Nora living in a bubble: I'm allergic to fruit, tree-nuts, soy products and now certain vegetables. I used to put away a canteloupe a day. I can't eat touch it anymore. Almonds, pecans, walnuts, pine nuts, coconuts all cause me to bloat and swell while turning a lovely shade of bright red, during which time my eyes, ears, nose and throat close up. I'm also allergic to every tree, grass, mold, mildew, weed and plant that we have in Missouri, which isn't a problem 9 months of the year.

According to my doc, my outdoor allergies have translated into oral allergies, so when I eat anything that grows on a tree or potentially in the ground, it is as though I'm shoving fistfuls of the deadly pollen in my body at intoxicating levels. It makes total sense.

What is annoying, however, is how my life has changed since I was diagnosed with these darn food/oral allergies a year ago.

If I'm going to a dinner party I have to be the pain in the butt guest who asks what is in each dish. More than once I have had to politely pass on the entree and settle for salad and sides as my dinner.

When people notice my lack of eating they of course want to know why, so I begin to explain, as succinctly as possible, my rationale. Conversation goes like this:

Friend: "Why aren't you eating the chicken with almond sauce?"
Nora: "Ah, well, I'm allergic to tree nuts."
Friend: "Really? What happens?"
Nora: "I swell up and can't breathe."
Friend: "Are you sure your allergic to all tree nuts?"
Nora: "Yes."
Friend: "Interesting. So, how do you avoid eating them? Don't you crave them?"
Nora: "Oddly enough you don't crave something that might kill you."
Friend: blank stare and silence.
Nora (to herself): That always works.

In all honesty it's a much safer world if I stick to meat, cheese, bread and dairy, all products I know I can eat. I carry massive amounts of Benadryl with me and whoever I'm out with is alerted to the location of my EpiPen, just in case. I'm learning to deal with the fact that asking what's in my food isn't rude or picky, just being a lifeguard for myself. It's not hard to avoid the poison foods, most especially when one false move or unnecessary bite could your life. I'm Italian and I love food, but not that much.

The running joke, however? Is that as my allergies get worse, as they are, that I'll only be able to order a glass of water when I go out to eat with my friends. I'm sure a whole new onslaught of questions about my eating habits would arise, but at least I'd be in the best shape of my life.

"Even though only 24 per cent of doctors trusted the information as much as an independent source, most (81 per cent) would rather receive it because it was often the only way to get timely information on new drugs," the SMH reports.

"The survey of 180 doctors found that 73 per cent referred to pharmaceutical companies or their representatives for drug information. This made the companies the second-most important source for doctors after clinical evidence.

"Drug companies are the main source of information for 16 per cent of doctors when deciding whether to prescribe a new drug, the survey said.

"'[Drug company marketing is] often the only way you get information about new drugs in a timely fashion,'" one doctor said."

Unlike most media reports, which paint pharma companies as worse than tobacco companies, this report stresses that the main reason GPs rely so heavily on pharma companies is the lack of independent information available. Although there may be a difference between "lack of information" and "lack of knowledge of information", as half of the GPs surveyed said they were not aware of the government-funded National Prescribing Service (NPS). Hmmm, maybe the government needs a national field force armed with brochures, pens and Post-it notes...

Our wine shelves are empty just now for two reasons. One, we seemed to drink far too much in the early weeks of my knowledge of Otloml's betrayal. Drowning our sorrows I suppose. Two, our good neighbourly intentions to the new residents of the top house, have always included a bottle of wine or two, based on the way our friendship with Her and her poor deluded husband had been. Granted the carroty-haired second hand clothes dealing bitch who replaced Her prefers lager, but her new husband was happy to drink our offerings. At least that won't be happening again. Nor will I be donating any more plants to their garden, although she seemed to want some.

Taking the Dread-locked Dog a walk this evening has led me to ponder the waste of female wiles on the opposite sex. We met a charming cairn terrier bitch who quite obviously fancied my dog. He was impervious to her blandishments, just barking rudely at her. The only bitch I have known him to fancy in his nine years was his mother and surely even the Kennel Club would frown on such a mating, especially after a recent t.v. programme about in-breeding in pedigree dogs.Is it the female of the species who has to make all the running these days? I may not be a bitch (though some might question that) but I seem to be the one chasing Otloml. Is it worth it? What did his other two women see in him ? Or was it just the opportunity for a fuck? At the moment, if I were a child, I think i might be taken into care as my arms and legs are festooned with bruises. And I am not even sure how I acquired some of them. Perhaps Otloml is doing a bit of wife battering when I am asleep!

I managed to upset myself again this evening convinced that Otloml had run away to Her again. He had gone to Dundee on some pretext and answered  neither my texts nor my more frantic calls. Why? He claims he did not take his phone with him , but really! He always seems to be able to communicate with the other two. Do I have to face the possibility that after thirty two years he is just bored with me? Do i have to change my image? I don't think I am quite the "tweedie" one of his friends described me as, but maybe I need to update myself. I have tried a new hairstyle and sexy new underwear. The one image I have never had is that of the tracksuit wearing, trainer footed  sportswoman. I would not have thought that had much appeal for him. One of my rivals, that French woman does dance. Indeed I surmise that this was how they "came together". Her husband does not seem to want to view her public performances whereas mine did, even travelling at my expense, to video-tape her. I suppose that all this writhing around for her modern dance makes her incredibly supple for their sex  acts. As for Her, all that I know of her physical activity,other than in the sack with Otloml, was that she used to dive and while resident here, gardened. She is young enough to have been my child so I suppose that makes her more attractive, even for a man in his fifties with erectile disfunction. This of course was one of Otloml's reasons for going to see the doctor who advised him that he needed to make a clean breast of his goings on to me if he was to have any chance of mental or physical well-being. Now I like this doctor, but did he think of me at all? I had been his patient. Otloml had been to the surgery so infrequently that he was called in so that he could remain on their books. I think I would rather know about the adultery, but I had been oblivious to it for two years or more. That Frenchwoman was apparently the first to receive Otloml's sexual favours. She would willingly continue a secret affair judging by her e-mails at the time I learned the truth. The other woman apparently found it difficult to speak to me on the phone because of our history, but would it seems welcome Otloml as a permanent partner. I know that he thinks he has made a commitment to me just by not moving up to Elgin but I need more, much more. The pay cheque is due in on Thursday. Is that all the benefit he sees from me? If so then we must split , however much affection I still have for him.

First of all the people who are allowed access to this information (teachers, social workers and health workers to name but a few) steal information about children and their families so as to invade their privacy, now they are wanting to share the information with the police long after the child has turned 18.

With information being stolen from the childs and family Summary Care Record, it is easy to see how doctors/nurses are nothing short of agents for the state.

Link to story:

http://www.e-health-insider.com/news/4090/police_to_get_access_to_national_child_database

 Sympathetic,
              WishIWasASmoothie

Over the past seven days I have lost count of the amount of 999 phone calls from people saying they contacted their doctor who then told them to call 999 for things which the doctor should be dealing with.

Take one case, a woman with abdo pains.

Now abdo pains can cover a range of problems so you should never take them for granted when you get a call about them, they could be something serious or they could be something totally harmless...like they were with this paitent.

She stated she had already phoned her GP to ask for his advice on what she should do...his advice? phone 999 and ask for an ambulance and get them to take you into hosptial.

Understandably she was worried sick, after all her trusted GP had said she needed an ambulance so there must be something really wrong. So I triage the call going through the abdo pains route on AMPDS the call flagged up green and advised me to pass the call to NHS Direct, something I couldn't do because she had already spoken to her GP, so we had to send an ambulance.

An hour later after checks by the crew a call came through to a fellow dispatcher, the call was unnecessary and they wanted someone to take the doctor down a peg or two for misusing the service. The patient herself was embarrassed, but was assured it wasn't her fault.

The doctor remained unrepentant stating that the ambulance service is there for emergencies and because he said she should have an ambulance to take her to hosptial then they should have done as he requested. The doctor was politely reminded that we are not his taxi service and it she was in fact ok and suffering from an extreme case of constipation which she could deal with by paying a visit in person to her GP as it was his job to deal with.

If you think the drunks are bad enough to deal with then try dealing with the arrogance of a GP sometime.