Why do good intentions in the public sector lead to evil?

The tactic of demonising dissenters from the global warming orthodoxy has a long and dishonourable history now, and I'm sure that readers scarcely need me to recount the instances of bad behaviour that have made it to the public record. I was struck by the parallels between these stories and the experiences of Professor Joseph Meirion Thomas, a cancer surgeon who had the temerity to write a series of articles questioning certain aspects of the way health services are run in the UK.

The resultant Twitter storm would have looked entirely familiar to BH readers, with GPs and nurses all over the country flinging vulgar abuse at the good professor. This probably all falls under the heading of "free speech" (although also under the heading of "bad manners"), but as ever with these things there were less reputable ideas floating around, with one GP trying to organise a complaint to the General Medical Council and, in a painful echo of Andrew Dessler's contemptible behaviour during the Bengtsson affair, a GP from Fulham asked if the professor was "unwell". A letter describing Meirion Thomas as "vile" and "evil" was circulated to doctors in the area where the professor worked.

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Quote of the day

Dr Crippen, the mastermind behind the best medical blog there is, has emerged from hibernation and is straight back into his stride, with a comment from a Professor of Paediatrics of his acquaintance:

“You know, if I were suddenly taken ill, I would be terrified to be admitted to a British NHS Hospital.”

Patient power

There's a wonderfully Orwellian article in the Times today:

Brown promises more patient power in vision for NHS of the future.

Great. I'm all in favour of patient power - you know, being able to choose where and when and by whom you are treated. 

Tell me more. I'm all ears.

The Prime Minister unveiled his vision for the future of the NHS, in which he said patients would take greater responsibility for monitoring their own health, for delaying the onset of illness, and for helping to direct their own treatment when they did become unwell.

So by patient power, he means doing work that was previously done by doctors yourself, and for free as well. 

Wouldn't "DIY healthcare" be a better description? 

Posts you wish you had written

Have you ever written something useful in a comment to a blog post, and later regretted not having expanded it into a full post?  Especially when someone writes it up into a much better story than you ever could? It's just happened to me.

Some time ago, the legendary Neil Harding wrote a post about how marvellous the NHS was and how the UN had ranked the UK 26th in the world and the US 37th. I pointed out to him that this was a complete nonsense because the UN biased the metric towards tax funded systems. As I explained in a later post, I refrained from writing a full post on it because fisking Neil seems somehow unsporting - to the dextrosphere he occupies a position somewhat akin to that of Ming Campbell to the Conservatives. He's their man, but he's scoring goals for us.

Anyway, having regretted my weakness once, I now find that Glen Whitman at Agoraphilia has written a widely-cited series of postings on the strange left-wing bias of the UN's healthcare metrics. Good to see this story getting the wider readership it deserves, particularly as the UN numbers are being used by Michael Moore in his film, Sicko.

And in a final twist to the story, Tim Worstall has a posting up today which shows that Neil H is still trying to tout the UN ranking as evidence that the NHS is better than the alternatives! When I've already shown him that the metric is a nonsense! What an extraordinary bit of shamelessness. Neil becomes more of an asset every day, doesn't he?

E-petition

There is an e-petition up on the Downing Street site calling for the NHS to be scrapped. The authors want it replaced with private health insurance. While I think a Singapore-style individual provident fund would be better, the point that the NHS must go has to be made and made loudly.

I've signed it. I think you should too.