Complication, Confusion & Trust

I think we all benefit from simple messages. 

Personally I don't find maths easy, but I do understand visual graphs & charts. I like simple explanations of things, for example Prof Spieglehalter is my icon of easy to understand. Similarly I'm a fan of "More or Less". What I really dislike is the modern technique of political interviewing, as exemplified by some of the presenters of the "Today" & "PM" radio 4 programmes. To be fair, it must get really irritating when politicians simply don't answer the question, but trot out the response they have been programmed to put across, which may or may not have any relevance to the question. Interruptions & speaking across eachother is extremely annoying to the listener.

Our world & it's problems are very complicated. If I consider the Climate Emergency, the current ongoing wars, food security, wealth distribution.... none of them are simple. It is almost impossible to give a black & white synopsis of the information we have. I doubt that one person can grasp the total picture & certainly no one could put forward an easy solution that would work. We need teams of expertise to reach consensus in decision making. So I have no issues with advisors, so long as they are qualified to advise.

So people like me, who are interested in what is happening to our world & what the solutions & outcomes might be, can become confused by the warring voices. Not least because there are "bad actors" who quite deliberately muddy the waters. Who do we believe? Who do we trust? 

It isn't simply a question of trust. Our individual lives are busy & complicated. Just dealing with the everyday can be time consuming & difficult. How many of us have the time to verify what we are being told? Why should we have to? But we no longer trust governments & politicians. We don't trust the press & the media. We don't trust the Police. Unbelievably, many do seem to trust Influencers & Social media despite the evidence to the contrary.

I don't expect those with power in charge of government or multinational companies to always get it right. They should be allowed to make mistakes & change their minds, that is human. 

But I do expect them to be open, truthful & take responsibility to put the mistakes right. That seems to be really difficult for them to do because they overridingly want to protect their power, position & wealth. 

What is the answer? The only one I can think of is oversight bodies that actually do their job properly, with the power to hold anyone to account & operate sanctions if appropriate. But seeminly the bodies that we have are unable or unwilling to actually do their job. Hence all the "Special Enquiries".

Our society is in a mess & so is our planet. But we do have the intelligence to put it right. The public just need to get their act together to force change.

A Visit to A&E

I have just spent most of the weekend in the A&E of my local hospital. It isn't the first time, unfortunately I am someone who gets far more than their money's worth from the NHS. I never cease to be grateful for the care & skill of medics. How they cope with the sheer volume & variety of patients & the working conditions continually amazes me. Morale & care seems surprisingly high considering what they have to put up with, so I would never criticise the people who actually work in the NHS.

I do think the system needs a serious overhaul though & have blogged about it before. If they were to follow patients journeys through the system I think they might see opportunities for improvement.

I don't need to bore you with the detail of the circumstances that sent me there, but I will tell you the progress through it. 

14.30 - medical incident -> phoned 111-> initial speedy triage (efficient) -> 2nd triage, same questions but much longer & very inefficient. Took about 45 minutes. Both my daughter & I found it very difficult to understand the person asking questions -> doctor eventually rang hours later -> told to go to out of hours appointment at 19.00 -> a wonderful, competent, GP who sent me to A&E with a printed copy of the notes she took of all the neurological tests she did -> A&E 20.15 receptist + nurse then waiting room -> 9 hours in various waiting areas in a chair! Eventually triaged, same questions, ECG, Bloods, Blood pressure. Doctor eventually, same questions & tests as previously & a CT scan. No one was very interested in the very good notes the out of hours GP had given me. Everyone wanted to go through the same tests & questions themselves & didn't seem to know what the outcome of the previous persons questions & tests were. Long gaps between every interaction with no information -> eventually discharged at about 05.15 next morning. 

I was utterly exhausted having had no sleep & in quite a bit of pain because sitting in really uncomfortable chairs triggers some of my normal health conditions. 

I can completely understand why everyone a patient sees has to ask name, DOB & address. They need to know they are treating the right person. 

What I simply don't understand is why so much time is apparently wasted answering exactly the same health & incident related questions & doing exactly the same neurological tests. Why don't medics have ipads to enter the information as they go & share it with everyone treating that patient? In fact, does a single patient really need to be seen by so many people?

Triage means the preliminary assessment of patients or casualties in order to determine the urgency of their need for treatment and the nature of treatment required.

If my condition had been more serious than it turned out to be I would possibly have been dead after the time that elapsed.

When I got home at about 06.00 next morning, after waiting for a taxi, I went to bed. The hospital apparently tried to phone me around 9.30 to call me back for another CT + angiogram. My phone was turned off, but fortunately I woke up at about 11.00 & my daughter got through in time to collect me & take me back.

I'm fine now. But at 79 with several chronic conditions that experience was very trying. 

I completely understand from far too much experience, as far as a patient can, the difficulties the NHS operates under, (apologies for the pun). I just think that one of the great failings of the system is effective communication & sharing of information. In this age of modern technology it is really not acceptable to be wasting so much time in repetition. The use of ipads might be expensive initially but they could also be linked to the whole NHS computer system & from that every surgery & hospital could access a patient history in real time.

There must be other ways technology could be used to make the system better for medics & patients. 

 

Life Goes On....

How resiliant are you? 

Life doesn't tend to be a "bed of roses". There are so many idioms about this - "a dogs life", "as you sow so shall you reap", "calm before the storm", "come rain or shine", "get a life", "a taste of your own medicine"... We all need to be able to deal with the good & bad days, the kindness & cruelty of life & other people. 

Some people have to cope with far more though. Some people are tested to the limits of endurance. The bandwidth of adversity is extremely wide. From unkind, cruel or bigoted speech to physical harm & even murder & genocide. Until we have to face adversity we really don't know how well we will cope. I imagine most of us hope that we will deal with whatever happens well, with consideration for others & care for ourselves.

Life really does go on. We cling to existance in the most adverse of circumstances. The great driver is to continue to live. 

In todays unstable world I really wish that there was more understanding, empathy & human kindness & a lot less judgement, self absorbtion & protectionism. When we are faced with "bad actors", (people or organizations responsible for actions that are harmful, illegal, or morally wrong), I wish we all had more moral courage to speak out & take action against them. It seems to me that we increasingly manage to compartmentalise what we see & know. We tell ourselves that our actions won't make a difference, that it's someone elses responsibility, that we will make matters worse...So nothing is done & the "bad actors" win by default.

This is true at a micro & macro level. If someone says or does something that I think is untrue, offensive  or harmful & I do nothing, I am jointly responsible in allowing that to continue. If we as a nation see what is happening at a macro level internationally & do nothing, we are perpetuating evil & discrimination.

The really sad thing is that it is a repeating pattern. We even ignore the lessons of  recent history. We repeatedly say "this must never be allowed to happen again" when we are forced, by evidence, to face up to the consequences of our inaction. Other people are seriously harmed.

There have been so many Public Enquiries in the UK - Covid, The Post Office, Contaminated Blood....Wikipedia has a huge list. There have also been political documentaries like the BBC "Corridors of Power - Should America Police the World"  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0020xmq  looking into what happened in Iraq, Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Darfur, Libya, Syria - Repeated failure to act, over & over again.

We are now doing it again. Unbelievably Syria has continued since 2011. The first Sudanese war lasted from 1955 -1972. The current one has continued for 17 months. What is happening in Ukraine seems likely to go on for as long as Putin is in power. The situation in Gaza & the West Bank has rumbled on for decades, but currently is by far the worst. 

For millions of people life doesn't go on & we just watch on our TV's & smart phones.

I Wonder Why?

The older I get the more perplexed I become. I have always been fascinated by how much the behaviour of people varies. Not only the behaviour of peoples from different cultures & countries, or even within the UK, but specifically in England. We appear to be becoming more & more polarised. Ever more extreme. 

For example why do people mindlessly believe what they are told by social media, "influencers", the press, the TV even? Why do they not use the amazing tools we have to verify information before they react? 

Why do people react aggressively or violently to situations & information without digging deeper to find out not only the truth, but also the underlying causes of whatever has happened?

Why are women targeted by men the world over & treated really badly, abused & even killed?

Why are so many children abused & not cared for properly?

Why is there such a wide discrepency in both opportunity & wealth in all countries?

Why do we think that it is acceptable for a very small percentage of individuals to have more wealth than actual countries? In fact why do those individuals think that squandering their money on mega yachts & several palatial houses is acceptable when there are people who don't have clean water or anywhere to live?

Maybe that is the answer to all my questions. We have allowed our world to become extremely unfair. We have allowed the people who have the wealth & the power that goes with it, to have control over more or less everything from business to politics to economics. We have allowed the richest 1% to own almost half of the world's wealth, while the poorest half of the world own just 0.75%. They literally rule the world & the poorest struggle just to survive. 

Don't even start me on the dictators & truly evil leaders, who squirrel away billions of their countries wealth, while watching the mass of people struggle to live. The Pandora Papers published in 2021 exposed use of "offshore havens" by the wealthy.

If we are to survive & prosper, that prosperity has to be shared more evenhandedly. We need to grow economies to generate income to lift people out of poverty & develop sustainable infrastructure. Everyone needs to contribute to that according to their ability to pay. We do need to have entrepreneurs with vision, but it is not acceptable that if successful they are allowed to amass vast amounts of wealth & then pass it on to their offspring. That just perpetuates privilege.

Not everyone is equal. Humans vary a lot. But everyone should have the Maslow basics & everyone should have equal opportunity to live & succeed.

https://wir2022.wid.world/chapter-4/

https://wir2022.wid.world/www-site/uploads/2021/10/ANIM_F4.3a.mp4  

 

Normal?

We all think we are "normal", but what is normal? How do we define it? Is it behavior that conforms to the most common behavior in the society we live in? In which case how do we reconcile the very different, cultural, accepted behaviours worldwide? Is it the most common behavior for  an individual, whether or not it conforms to society norms? Statistically 'normal' means not significantly deviating from the average. I can only compare myself to my friends, family & aquaintances. My social group, like most people's, is relatively homogenious. So how do I know that represents normality? It is only normal for my group & even within that group there is a wide range of behaviours & beliefs.

We learn what normality is initially from our parents. Like it or not, our parents teach us by conditioning, habituation & imprinting. Our version of what is "normal" depends on who parented us & their social strata. It is "learned behaviour". Teachers follow on from parents & there is an argument that education is also indoctrination.

One definition of normal human behavior is any behavior, including speech, that does not bring harm to  individuals or people. "First do no harm" is probably a good mantra for anyone, not just medics. 

When I compare the world today to the world of my childhood, teens & early adulthood there is some similarity, but not much. My world today is much better in many ways, certainly more financially secure & technologically sophisticated. The world I remember was simpler & more relaxed. I have had to adjust to a new "normal".

The thing is, has that adjustment meant that I accept things that would have been anathema to the younger me? In some ways yes, I'm less judgmental & emotionally volatile. But my moral compass is the same. I'm just far better informed & understand the complexities better. I have the web at my fingertips & can research & verify information.

The most worrying thing is that "normal" seems to mean something so different today that I just can't come to terms with it. Wars, mindless violence, corruption, failed states, poverty, famine, waste, polution, unsustainable lifestyles ..., all of this & more has become normal.

We are in danger of accepting all of this. If we don't resist this new "normal" our society will collapse, because it isn't normal. It's all very abnormal.