Suit You Nurse
by Ian R Thorpe
first posted at Boggart Blog, 2006-05-02
The latest National Health Service crisis exposes the “New Labour” project as a sham and a scam. Tony’s cronies surfed to power on a tidal bore of presentation but never really had any policies. All they had was spin and suits.
Like the two sleazy salesmen from The Fast Show they managed to divert our attention from their own vacuity by pointing to the sleaze of the conservatives. They schmoozed us with slogans then sold us a pup, a pig in a poke, a ringer, a bum steer and all those other things that are the stock in trade of sleazy scam artists.
And as they were all little people in cheap suits they tried to turn us all into little people in cheap suits, thinking we all wanted to be middle managers. Ooh, suits you.
As the NHS sinks into possibly terminal crisis the spin proclaims there are seventy thousand (!) additional nurses working in the service. My friend who is a senior mental health nurse for a large hospital trust near here says, as the Royal College of Nursing said very assertively “no effing way are there any extra nurses.” The staffing problems in wards are greater than ever, she tells me, adding that the front line professionals are sure the government simply tell us how many nurses have joined the profession, conveniently forgetting to subtract the numbers that have left.
And all the time the nurses are being asked to spend more time on administrative work.
It is made quite clear that any nurse wanting a career should hone their administrative skills.
“Never mind the care and compassion Nurse, what patients need is properly managed recovery projects. Swap those scrubs for a suit and the thermometer for a clipboard. Ooh, suit you. We can contract out the enemas and empathy to the private sector and concentrate on management. Ooh, suit you nurse. Its specialised barrier nursing you see nurse, put a barrier of bureaucracy between you and the punter and they can’t sue us when they die. Fancy some legal training nurse, help us fend off those law suits? Look very good in court in your suit, you will. Ooh, suit you.
What about you doctor? Hitting our targets are we. No, not with a scalpel doctor, with a spreadsheet. Suit you; contract it out and manage it, cut costs not coronary arteries. If it can be measured, it can be misrepresented. Ooh, suit you.
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Suit You Nurse
