Another day, another sick joke

 The Department of Sick Jokes just gets sillier and sillier.

Earlier this year it  ran the worst government ‘consultation’ in Manx history before confirming vacuous pro-life freaks with double digit IQs will dictate all care of the terminally ill. Which is exactly what the faith-addled pro-life freak posing as a health minister and his hand-picked faith-addled pro-life advisors always intended to do anyway.

It is now letting loose possibly the least-informed bunch of amateur prodnoses ever to register as a Manx charity (quite an achievement, given the sheer range of superstitious dullards and bored rich parasites already causing misery and chaos amongst the local dispossessed) to provide “open access, support and advice services for addictions.”

See http://www.gov.im/lib/news/health/departmentofheal53.xml and try not to burst out laughing.

There is some small compensation in knowing that this will be a complete waste of time. For example, the Department of Hopeless Affairs solemnly assured us not so long ago that the island does not have anywhere near the drug problems all the ESPAD surveys they underwrote said we have. For another, once you plod your way through the details of an expensive survey a few years ago which was supposed to save the AAS’s funding you discover that, actually, the survey of young people, well….wasn’t…. because the academics running it couldn’t find any young people. So they asked eight or ten random older bods instead and then just converted the whole thing into percentages which figured in scary press releases, which were dutifully run by a compliant press who simply never bothered to read the research.

To their credit, as they had to get it published in an academic journal to build up their own claim to be proper academics, the researchers did admit this. True, they only said it in a publication which the government though was only available at huge cost to academic institutions, but anyone (well, me) determined to track it down can find it for free. So, when government ‘experts’ claim to know about drinking patterns amongst the young (or indeed any age group or sub-sector of Manx society) I can just snigger with impunity, because unlike them I’ve actually read the evidence they commissioned. 

Thoroughly.

The dumbest thing is that, way before the latest troupe of clowns gained control of the Sick Department, we even had a perfectly adequate facility for dealing with alcoholics and some professionally qualified staff to run it. But rather than pay the going NHS rate for staff, the government left it empty for a year or two. Now they are handing money to a bunch of quacks without so much as a science GCSE between them, who are busily trolling local churches for even more clueless volunteers to do the actual counselling.

Please laugh loudly, and often, and then treat yourself to a drink…or possibly two. Considering how much we’re paying to keep these chumps in pointless employment I think we’ve all earned it.

Frightening the horses, but nobody else

It seems the island’s most demented pro-lifers are up to their old tricks.
Judging from http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/renowned_lecturer_to_give_euthanasia_talk_1_3213057 they’re planning to scare some horses at Stepford Central next Saturday. Mostly elderly ones who don’t get out much or read newspapers, I suppose.
Friends who know I played a major role in Pat Kneen’s momentous Manx Right-To-Die campaign a few years back pointed this out, thinking I would froth at the mouth or at least pen a letter to the papers. The truth is, it doesn’t concern me, and it also shouldn’t worry anyone who wants Manx law changed to let terminally ill folk choose their end.
But on the principle that I should show at least polite interest in such nonsense, this (see http://www.johnling.co.uk/ ) is the chancer who’ll be trying to put baseless fears into vulnerable minds. This (see http://www.cis.org.uk/resources/interviews/john-ling ) explains a little more about where he’s coming from and who his friends are, and this (see http://www.christian.org.uk/pdfpublications/map_jan_2007.pdf ) is the kind of obscurantist twaddle he produces, and for what audience.
The funniest thing is, he can’t even sell this guff to some of them.
Today I discovered that Ling also tried, but failed, to get some of his nonsense published in one of the UK’s most rabid evangelical rags. As these awful papers usually jump at the thought of a contributor who can even demonstrate a three figure IQ, never mind an academic background, this was quite a stunt.
The Manx cabal of LIFE are no threat either. Funnily enough, only a year or so ago they managed to annoy both local doctors and even chemists by kicking off about one of Ling’s other obsessions, the so-called ‘morning-after-pill’.
I have it on good authority that GPs got most irate when the closet pro-lifer then running the health service (as opposed to the openly pro-lifer who runs it now) tried to foist some very dodgy LIFE literature on them with the apparent intent that they should both read it and take it seriously. When LIFE then tried to ‘suggest’ to local pharmacists that they should refuse to cooperate on grounds of ‘conscience’ (something they picked up from CARE’s similar campaign with registrars on civil partnerships) they just got another flea in the ear.
Maybe both parties (having a more than tabloid understanding of the subject matter) were just so underwhelmed by the Ling argument as sponsored by the Christian Institute featured above that they now avoid anything associated with LIFE, or other simpletons. Leaving the pro-lifers (such an innacurate term, by the way, for misanthropic know-nowts) to gather what small change they can from other churchgoers who have nothing better to do this Saturday.
Meanwhile, the rest of us can just do something better in peace.

Lies, damn lies and dipsticks

I was mildly amused by an article in this week’s Examiner where Liberal Vannin took exception to the use of the ‘Pathway’ system at Nobles (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/Liberal-Vannin-blasts-hospital-care.5706820.jp). To be honest, after a quick giggle at yet another desperate Manx press ‘shock horror expose’ with no substance I then thought no more of it for a couple of days.
This is, after all, a political grouping which calls itself ‘liberal’ yet includes white flighters thrown out of UKIP for stirring up race hate. And this is a ‘local newspaper’ which, as part of a plan to drive the last locally owned publication out of business and get an advertising monopoly, ran uncut government press releases as an unspoken condition of getting the government advertising. Even funnier, Johnston Press staff seem to be so underpaid they’re moonlighting as PR hacks for troubled government departments.
And even funnier than that, Johnston Press management are key partners in Freedom to Flourish, which, under the pretence of running an international PR campaign for the island, actually creates the bogus community groups (known in PR speak as ‘astroturf’) whose activities fill the ‘community’ and ‘charity’ columns. Helpfully, the F to F hacks we, the public, pay around half a million for via government PR initiatives are kind enough to write all the publicity for such groups. Otherwise we might not think the island is a caring place where poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia and corruption don’t exist.
Then I happened to be at an advisory meeting, supposedly on NHS ethics, where a senior local Catholic tried to move discussion to the Pathway initiative and complain that patients have no say in end of life decisions (I know, Catholic and end of life decisions, goes together like Nick Griffin and racial tolerance, doesn’t it?).
Because of other strange comments at the meeting I was intrigued enough to wonder where Karran’s complaint came from. Just jumping on fear and folk myths, or ‘advised’ by anyone or anything specific?
I knew, for example, the Catholic speaker had been ‘advised’ by his seniors in Liverpool, where the Pathway project began. And I knew that senior UK Catholics are rabble-rousing and scare-mongering in response to the recent legal clarifications over assisted suicide.
So I looked at the story again, and noted that: “Party members explained they are not questioning the plan's use for the terminally ill in Hospice Isle of Man but for those who are 'probably' dying in Noble's Hospital.”
Hmm, that’s strange. A private health facility (though underwritten by public money) which provides end of life care you wouldn’t submit your dog to, which relies on volunteers and ‘alternative therapists’ rather than employ qualified staff and offer scientifically proven medical treatment, which, mysteriously, never has the capacity to deal with working people of slender means dying of the most awful cancers, yet always has a place for wealthy bods still capable of changing their wills….
So, while this excuse for a hospital has been using the Pathway system for years, Karran is only concerned about those who are ‘probably’ dying in Nobles ( in other words, there are rumours about Nobles but absolutely no substance)?
How curious!
Could all this have anything to do with information given to the Daily Telegraph by another consultant, who pointed out that the Liverpool Care Pathway was developed by one Professor John Ellershaw. Thing is, as well as being a consultant in palliative medicine Ellershaw also features prominently in material by Care Not Killing, a right wing coalition which includes most of the flakiest ‘pro-life’ nutjobs and churches such as the C of E. This is not counting around a million in funding to CNK from the Catholic church via front groups specifically to enable ‘spontaneous’ calls from the ‘concerned public’ to any radio show phone-in on pro-life issues.
We should also note that hospice and palliative care ‘professionals’ are the most rabid opponents to assisted suicide in any form. Well, they would be, wouldn’t they?
Patients making informed advance decisions to die at a time when things get too much? That takes valuable income away from those whose only interest is spinning out our suffering as long as possible, in order to charge to the max for snake-oil ‘therapies’ with no practical or scientifically testable effect.