This is a continuation of the fruit and veg theme (click on the “EMFV” in the TAG CLOUD for the other posts).
Onions count too. Just one that is!
They lower blood pressure and cholesterol.
Not always good if you plan to kiss a girl just after a meal.
But ideal when heated and placed on the boil for drawing out puss !
Lots to be said for onions.
This is a speech no-one made in the debate on assisted dying on Friday 18th July 2014 in the House of Lords. (See earlier posts on this subject by clicking on “ASSISTED SUICIDE” in the TAG CLOUD).
“I welcome this Bill with open arms. It has the potential to lift a great burden on society and pave the way for further advances in NHS no-care of the elderly.
Immediately after the Bill is first approved, by being economical with the facts and focussing on the emotional and genuine cases of distress in terminal illness, we can take the moral high ground.
Initially only a few high profile cases, which are unquestionably sincere, will avail themselves of the new law. This will affirm the righteousness of the argument and make it easier in the years ahead to widen the scope of the Bill and enable this innovative new social policy to be available to even more older people. If we believe in the pain and suffering of the terminally ill, why not then go on to accept that Alzheimer’s could be redefined as a terminal illness. This would eradicate the prolonged suffering of all those in the lost world of dementia. Hundreds and thousands of dementia sufferers could be helped to an easier death. Consent could easily be given by their long suffering relatives.
Equally, many of the chronically sick older people who block so many beds in NHS hospitals, overwhelm GP surgeries, drain Social Services of all their resources for preventative services could all be assisted to die sooner.
Instead of the current hugely expensive Welfare State, we could, at least for the elderly, make a new policy of National Assistance —— a sort of National Neglect State.
At the simple stroke of an amending legislator’s pen in the years ahead as the growing burden of the elderly becomes unbearable to society as a whole – we at last may have a Final Solution. The bottom of the slippery slope of assisted dying has a lot to recommend it:-
And perhaps best of all:-
What’s not to like in this new forward thinking 21st century society ????????”
I commend this speech to the House!
An unspoken speech by The Grim Reaper
This is a continuation of the fruit and veg theme (click on the “EMFV” in the TAG CLOUD for the other posts).
Speaking of rabbits, lettuce is another one of the healthy foods. You just have to eat a bowlful to make up your one a day. But not that juicy, cosmetically packed, hermetically sealed iceberg lettuce. That’s more water than nutritious.
Best to have the green, floppy leaved type like Romain or Rocket which are rich in vitamin A.
Not a lot more to be said about lettuce, except that when you have eaten a bowlful you may be one seventh healthier.
But you will still feel hungry 😦
(This is a continuing post on the recent theme of the assisted dying bill, click on ASSISTED SUICIDE in the TAG CLOUD for other posts on this subject).
Professor Theo Boer who originally was an advocate of assisted dying has now changed his view after seeing the policy develop after legislation was introduced in the Netherlands in 1967. What started as a compassionate approach to terminal illness with the active consent of patients and doctors, has now become “normal practice” for many elderly and chronically ill people.
What began as a response to a few exceptional cases has increased by 15% every year since 2008 and may well reach 6,000 deaths this year. Nearly 1 in 7 deaths are at the hands of doctors in the Netherlands.
A new medical term has now emerged – “terminal sedation” where patients are sedated and then dehydrated and starved to death. This has been advocated in the UK in the “Liverpool Pathway” – a term which has now been withdrawn. This approach accounts for 12% of all deaths in the Netherlands, but many people who die this way are not included in the assisted dying figures.
In Belgium the figures are even higher where 1 in 5 of all deaths are ‘helped’ by doctors.
The slippery slope looks to be getting slipperier and slipperier.
This could be the easy answer to the NHS being overwhelmed by elderly patients. It would be a lot cheaper than prolonging “unwanted” lives. The pensions industry would have a strategic solution to unpredicted longer lives. Who knows, annuities might even increase again if life expectancy starts to fall.
The economic argument for shortening older people’s lives is getting stronger all the time, though nobody dare advance that case in speeches in the House of Lords debates on assisted dying. Meanwhile care and compassion for the frail and vulnerable is talked about frequently in a heart on your sleeve way ——- but seldom acted upon.
After several years of careful parliamentary steering, Lord Falconer has brought forward his bill on assisted dying to the debate stage in the House of Lords. I have commented on the path this life ending project has taken —– like the slow march behind the funeral hearse.
(See other posts by clicking on “ASSISTED SUICIDE” in the TAG CLOUD).
Lord Falconer, with all the sure footed confidence of a former Lord Chancellor, knows that only single-minded, blinkered certainty will see the task through.
There is a strong sense of self-righteousness and little humility in the campaign. No room for doubt, no listening to dissention. The slippery slope argument advanced by some opponents of the bill, including myself, has been cast aside with disdain.
But is he right, or will this man with a mission end up with a monument for himself and an early headstone for thousands of elderly people – ????????????????
This is a continuation of the fruit and veg theme (click on the “EMFV” in the TAG CLOUD for the other posts).
Now carrots should be an easy win. Who doesn’t like carrots? Three tablespoons equals one healthy portion – which must be about one and a half carrots. They are packed full of vitamins A and C, although again much is lost in cooking. It rather seems as though cooking is a bad idea when it comes to eating vegetables in a healthy way.
Still, raw carrots aren’t so bad, certainly rabbits think so.
And don’t I remember carrots improve your eyesight, although that seems to contradict the story about rabbits and headlights 🙂
Stay safe. Stay off the road when you’re eating your carrots, or it may not be healthy eating after all !
A report was released on 4th July 2014 by Age UK and the Royal College of Surgeons. It highlighted the fact that many people aged over 75 are being denied life saving surgery for breast and bowel cancer on the NHS. This is also the case for knee and hip replacements.
There is no attempt to disguise this blatant ageism as some Health Authorities did not offer any breast cancer operations to patients over 75.
Strange then that this report is released the day after the annual Age UK National Later Life Conference! Yet there was no mention of the report even though the conference speakers included Earl Howe, the Under Secretary of State for Quality at the Department of Health, as well as several prominent clinicians and other health service professionals.
Seems like harmony is more important at Age UK that campaigns for the rights of older people.
Definitely no rage about age!
I went to the Age UK Later Life Conference at the start of July; walked into a lot of doctors which is by far the best way to remind you that you have reached the age to go to an Age UK Conference.
Curiously the title of the conference was “Loving Later Life” which held out the prospect of some positive images of retirement, but sadly Age UK swiftly went back to its roots and focussed mainly on “helping the aged” and “age concern”. Seems like they can’t break free of the burden of their history!
Lots of talk by the doctors about integrating health and social care. A subject that has been discussed by doctors for years, but since it challenges the independently funded empires of primary care, hospital care and local authority controlled social services, little is likely to change for many years to come.
Government Ministers and Shadow Ministers danced around the subject trying to look positive but say nothing controversial before next years’ election – so that guarantees nothing will happen soon.
Age UK Executives, wanting to be friends with everyone, agreed with everything and congratulated themselves and everyone else about what a good job they were all doing. The few challenging contributions from audience members were quickly glossed over leaving no disharmony on yet another year of little progress.
The changing demographics of the elderly population adds pressure to all elderly services to the point where the NHS is overwhelmed with older people and some services are beginning to be rationed or not offered at all to older people. GP’s are sinking under the weight of patients with multiple chronic conditions, while their patients wait and wait to see them at all. Social Services have been starved of cash by Central Government to the point where they are forced to look for excuses not to care for people at home.
Meanwhile, in the parallel universe of Age UK’s later life conference, all is sweetness and no light.
NO RAGE ABOUT AGE HERE
This is a continuation of the fruit and veg theme (click on the “EMFV” in the TAG CLOUD for the other posts).
Broccoli has become the trendy to eat healthy veg. Two large spears count as one of your seven, if you know what I mean.
It is rich in vitamin C, but the catch is that the vitamin C is lost when you cook it. I wonder where it goes? So you have to eat it raw to get the full benefit, which is a bit more of a challenge.
This healthy eating lark is beginning to be hard work. I feel like I could be wading through a forest of broccoli.
It’s the end of June, all is well, the sun is shining and pensioners are headlining a Glastonbury pop festival. The Times gives over a full-page 3 to 68-year-old Dolly Parton. Nearly 100,000 people came to watch. This only a year after an equally large crowd turned up to hear the ageing rocking Rolling Stones.
So some pensioners can still attract attention!
Elsewhere in the same newspaper in only a few lines on page 17, a small headline quietly with no fanfare states “elderly care faces funding catastrophe”.
The Local Government Association forecasts that another £5.8 billion is required to meet the shortfall in council funding for social care. Currently 30% of council budgets are spent on the elderly and this is set to rise to 40% by 2020. Meanwhile the Government’s austerity programme has cut social funding by £2.8 billion since 2010.
Whilst younger people listen to a few ageing rockers at Glastonbury, more and more older people are forgotten in hospital beds and residential homes.
GrumbleSmiles 