Please can we thank Councillor Sue Gray (Labour) of Belhus Ward , for all her hard work and commitment for helping our son get back into mainstream school after a year of home schooling. She was the only politician to fight our corner and write various letters to people and attend appeals.
WE welcome Stanford novelist, Helen Harrod, to our happy group of YourThurrock bloggers.
The female orgasm?
Oh don't be ridiculous, people will talk.
How about ageing...
OH DEAR, Oh dear. According to the Mirror, The NHS is being robbed by GP’s who are collecting money for unregistered patients! This was mentioned in a comment on my last blog. To be more precise, four GPs have been charged for cheating. And the remaining 33,000 GP’s? Let’s see!
I'M a real fan of sharing knowledge, and of being able to openly ask others for their views, input or even expertise. It figures then that I’m also a fan of forums, and often take part in specialist groups looking to do just that. A little while ago, whilst reading through a number of blog posts, I stumbled across a new forum post, posing the following question:
THROUGHOUT the planning process Barrett’s have engaged with local residents, R.A.I.D. and the Stanford Forum, I cannot remember the number of meetings I have had with them, even up until last week they were still willing to listen meeting with the Forum and individual local residents and whilst we did not get everything the local residents wanted they did make some concessions. They have been prepared to engage and that is to be applauded.
I GREW up in the 1970s when we were a lot less cognisant of how racist some of our language was and therefore, occasionally and usually in anger, some of those comments may slip out against my better judgement and totally in opposition to my feelings on the matter and the subject of immigration can sometimes bring those deeply buried snippets of language to the surface. That said, the same is true of anyone in the UK – racist thoughts, no matter how abhorrent to our conscious minds, lurk in our subconscious mind as a kind of cultural genetic inheritance or race memory. We are not alone in this respect as every country has its own version of this affliction and it can take very little to activate our hidden prejudices.
THE number of times GP’s have to chase patients, for their routine chronic disease management, is beyond measure. These are people who have had a condition for several years and know that they need to have certain checks done annually. The rude reaction GP’s get from some such patients is disheartening. Rudeness and ingratitude aside, every time such people fail to attend, they are preventing another patient from getting an appointment.
MOVING, but also amusing, personal tributes were made by Diana’s younger sister Pam Adams from whom we heard about a side of Diana very few of us would have expected as they capered about in bikinis in foreign lands and Wendy Armstrong, a close friend, recalled their time together as teachers.
CLLR Hale was a very special lady and Thurrock has lost a great advocate and representative. My heart goes out to her family but I hope they will be, in some small way, consoled by the fact that Diana Hale will never be forgotten by those whose lives were touched by her presence if even for a just moment. I know I won’t forget her.
A 27 year old man came to see me with chest pain. His pain was not related to activity; it was made worse by a deep breath; He had no cough or shortness of breath; he was tender when his chest was compressed and worse when he raised his arms. It was obvious his chest pain was musculoskeletal and not cardiac. His condition was explained to him and he was advised to obtain pain killers from the chemist. He went on his way happy and reassured.
TAKE a look at the photograph that accompanies the article and you may recognise the faces of women who are councillors as a result of “positive” discrimination, that is to say women only candidates are allowed to be considered for selection, a process which also applied to the selection of Polly Billington as the Labour Party Parliamentary candidate for Thurrock. These women, plus others like them, claim they are specifically championing the cause of “equality for women” whilst at the same time, I presume, they support equal rights for all.
A big subject this week is Internet Trolling. This is due to the sad and horrible suicide of Hannah Smith, a 14-year-old girl who suffered horrible taunts from strangers on the website ask.fm. She stood up for herself on numerous occasions, but it is obvious that this poor young girl eventually got pushed to the point where she could no longer carry on living, and took her own life. Sadly, she is not the first, nor will she be the last. 4,500 calls were made last year to Childline regarding internet abuse.
The NHS had it the Old Labour way, the Conservative way, then the Third Way under New Labour. What now?
Tony Blair, the man often credited with the newly fangled Third Way, once said that what he wanted for the NHS was: quick and convenient treatment, high quality care throughout the NHS, a positive experience for patients, better health as well as health care, and a partnership between the NHS and each individual in achieving better health
FOR the last three weeks, I have been busy starting our second on-line newspaper, www.yourharlow.com. The first year, as we found in Thurrock in 2008, is all about building up the mailing list. But one of our first challenges is finding the good news. We note that the one surviving local paper in Harlow has close to 30% of its stories wrapped around crime.
