Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Bansturbation

It's one of the more annoying things about those who discover that what they want isn't the way it is, it's as common amongst Daily Mail readers as it is amongst Guardianistas, they automatic reflex to ban something rather than deal with it at a personal level. And so it is with flu jabs...

BBC.
People who are not in an at-risk group should be banned from having private flu vaccinations, the chairman of the Royal College of GPs has said.
Dr Clare Gerada told the Daily Telegraph allowing healthy people to buy the flu jab had compounded NHS shortages and left others vulnerable.
There are reports some GPs in England have run out of stock.
The Department of Health said it could not prevent pharmacies from selling the vaccine commercially.
Nearly 15 million doses of seasonal flu vaccine have been delivered to the UK.
Usually that is more than enough but this year there has been a late surge in demand, with reports that some people most at risk from flu - including pregnant women and those with underlying health problems - have been unable to get the vaccine.
Some pharmacies have offered the jab privately for about £15.
Dr Gerada told the newspaper the private flu vaccinations had affected the "delicate balance" of availability and should be stopped by the government.
Yes, instead of lambasting the inefficient NHS and the GP's who failed to stock enough of the flu vaccine, they want to ban private businesses from selling it. Yes I know some groups are vulnerable, but surely the NHS and the GP's know who they are and could have ordered stocks in? There's nothing to stop them buying up the chemists stocks themselves after all, it's only our money they're spending, it's never stopped them before.
I suspect what has got their knickers in a twist is that people have decided they'd rather avoid having flu this year and taken it upon themselves to do something about it and rather than bother their GP's (who may have turned round and refused anyway) went to a supplier and paid the market price. So instead of taking a week off work to recover if they got flu, they keep going and help the country out, yet get the blame anyway for using their heads.
What happened was as usual the state run medical business was slow off the mark in making sure they had sufficient supplies, they are now screaming that those with the jabs now hand them over to them to cover their client base and I'm sure a lot will have sympathy for the people at risk who can't get a jab, I do, however it doesn't blind me to the fact of who is to blame for this. Nor do I have any sympathy for those who say we must rob Peter to pay Paul, perhaps those supplying Peter should have got their order in earlier, one thing in business you do learn is you don't irritate your customers by cancelling their orders.
Yet another example of NHS efficiency, they really couldn't be trusted to arrange a piss up in a brewery, or in this case a vaccination in an epidemic.

1 annotations:

Furor Teutonicus said...

XX The Department of Health said it could not prevent pharmacies from selling the vaccine commercially. XX

And was it not the very same DoH that, last year, sold off all their surplus flu Vaccines to the third world?

They did here, I SEEM to remember the U.K did the same. (?)

But then, here, they are not complaining about a shortage. In fact, the "new flu wave" is hardly an issue.