WOTW 25 AUG 2024 - POMPOUS POLITICIANS

[@peterallison-ex4yy]

Well said as usual Jake,hit the nail on the head with your WOTW 👏👏 Our politicians have been letting us down for years while most people just vote along sectarian lines

[@normanmeharry58]

I went to A&E feeling seriously ill having been sent by a doctor. I was 30 hours on a trolley. Only when a doctor passing noticed i was dying did they rush me into theatre and save my life with 4 hour operation. That happened in 2007. So it's hardly a now situation these long waiting times.

[@bjmccready6924]

well said jake ! bread and butter is what most of us are dealing with and we have been let down time and time again ! peace to the peaceful !

[@rabk5702]

Well said Jake calling them W's out you had me giggling 🤣🤣😂😂👍👍

[@calummc1090]

Your on the money remember this is six counties why do we need so many elected representatives MPs MLAs councillors civil servants it gos on and on and half of them on the sick with “stress” totally played out

[@BrianBell4073]

I haven't voted since GFA. People ask me why? No-one I would vote for or trust. People "Why do you not go into politics? It would give us someone worthwhile to vote for." Me "I would last about a day before I annoyed everyone by telling them the truth."

[@AnBreadanFeasa]

I am the opposite of a conspiracy theorist but this could well be another effort to reduce essential pubic services to prepare the public for the silver bullet solution... privatisation and the introduction of the US healthcare model. If the NHS becomes dysfunctional it becomes easier to get uninformed voters to support a private solution - any solution - before the cost and corruption become normal.

[@lisakuduk4754]

After a visit to Ireland both north and south this Spring, and being fearful of what my country will become if the orange muppet gets in to power this fall, the husband ( consultant pediatric hospitalist) and myself ( pediatric registered nurse) thought to look for potential opportunities in Ireland. Both Belfast and Dublin are building new pediatric hospitals so there would be opportunities! Then diving deeper I looked at salaries😱 ! Both the North and South woefully underpay your highly educated doctors and nurses for the schooling we have had to endure to achieve our degrees and for the responsibility of keeping your children alive and healthy. There is no way to afford housing close to the hospitals in either country let alone the transportation costs to get to work. No wonder you are losing your most dedicated and brightest elsewhere and the ones that stay go on strike ! The USA healthcare system is rife with its own problems true, and we do have a universal healthcare in our Medicare( elderly) and Medicaid( less fortunate), but the NHS model is not sustainable until taxes are raised and people take better care of themselves( that goes for over here too!) Be kind to your immigrant healthcare workers as they will be the one’s trying to keep you alive. As for voting for politicians, I hope to God That our country doesn’t vote that “ Golden calf “ into power. 🙏

[@AnBreadanFeasa]

@@lisakuduk4754 Here's to sanity in your November election and I truly hope your husband and you are not faced with an unenviable choice. Having said that, I had to reflect a little on your post before replying. First, I'm from the South so won't comment too much on the health system in the North/UK in detail. I've worked in London and am familiar with it in general - what was set up in the 50's was truly world leading and was affordable for the first 50 years of its operation - but more from an economic angle than from a healthcare professional's viewpoint. Which brings me to my comment about the NHS moving in the direction of the US model - privatisation and insurance driven. The US is unique among developed countries in that the healthcare sector consumes 17-18% of GDP... that's 50% more proportionally than France or Germany, and 60% more than Japan. All of those systems are first class. My criticism of the US model is that it is designed to reward those who control it - pharma and private healthcare providers. By extension healthcare professionals are well rewarded and well resourced and the US clearly leads the world in both treatment and research in many if not most areas. However, the result is that roughly 25-30 million Americans still have no health coverage, and those that do often have massive out of pocket or uninsured costs. That is not the case in the UK or Ireland or pretty much all of the developed world, except for expensive or rare treatments. However, a major factor in our systems is that there have been massive cost increases over the past 30 years as private healthcare has expanded as it is consistently subsidised by the public system. For example, private procedures are regularly carried out in public hospitals using publicly trained doctors and nurses. This means that the salaries of publicly employed professionals have dropped in relative terms. Having said that, a consultant pediatrician would earn over $250k pa and an experienced pediatric nurse c.$80-90k pa, excluding extra income from private work, which in the case of a doctor would be considerable. Final comment is that the cost of living in Ireland is high and that of housing ridiculously high. There is a serious shortage of houses and government interference has made things worse, not better. No-one moves to Ireland for the salary or cost of living - it's a very small country with a very high cost of living. But the same could be said for comparably sized countries like Denmark, Norway or Switzerland. All of these are very different and all are very attractive but you need to be pretty wealthly to get the best of them. As an overseas observer I have fingers, toes and eyes crossed that Harris will win in November. That's not because of political ideology (though I'd be closer to Dem policies than GOP), it's because Donny Dunce would not just turn the US into Gilead eventually, his election would destabilise Eastern Europe, give Putin victory in Ukraine, take all shackles off Netanyahu resulting in confrontation or conflict with Iran, encourage the Chinese to invade Taiwan, and disrupt the whole Indo-Pacific region. He's economically illiterate so there's very little doubt the dollar would weaken, international trade would fall catastrophically, and the probability of economic conflict would massively increase. So for hopefully the right reasons I hope you don't have to move to Ireland or NI 😉 But if the horrific happens in November I'd suggest that the salaries and cost of accommodation in Ireland will not be worst of your problems. Go mbeadh an t-ádh libh, a chairde ☘

[@Freddie66666]

If the sheep 🐑 keep voting these MLAs in what do you expect.