The government, the media, and the health service have buried their heads in the sand and promised our health problems will go away.
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Friday 08 March 2024: the government announced new health targets promising greatly shortened wait times and faster treatments, but incredibly failed to address why so many people are falling sick. Health Minister Shane Reti admitted the deficiencies in the announced policies, which are neither new nor realistic, saying:
“I do want to acknowledge that achieving shorter wait times for first specialist assessments and for elective treatments were tough for the previous government, and will be tough for us too.”
You don’t have to look very far to realise why. An article in the UK Daily Mail entitled “Why ARE so many young people having heart attacks? They had seemingly healthy lifestyles… but all these people suffered heart problems“, spills the beans. Apparently, close to 20% of people being admitted to hospital with heart attacks are now under 40.
According to Dr Joe Mills, a consultant cardiologist at Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital:
“We have really noticed the trend for younger people from mid-20s upwards having heart attacks in the past five years in particular. Now as a cardiologist, you wouldn’t even raise your eyebrows when seeing someone in their late 30s — it’s becoming fairly typical, which is frightening.”
The article then proceeds to trot out the usual suspects: obesity, stress, sedentary lifestyle, smoking, alcohol, and diabetes but fails to observe that none of these factors have changed appreciably or abruptly during the last five years. Something else has, and we all know what that it is, but the Daily Mail and the numerous doctors they interviewed all seem to be suffering from amnesia.
MPs Address Hidden Stats on UK Health Crisis: Hospital Admissions & Excess Deaths
This short-term memory loss is greatly aided by a determined effort to hide the worrying statistics of elevated excess death and alarming rates of hospital admissions covering a wide variety of conditions. Some UK MPs are no longer prepared to go on burying their heads in the sand like frightened ostriches.
An article in the UK Daily Telegraph entitled Health Secretary urged to release data that ‘may link Covid vaccine to excess deaths’ reports that MPs and peers have accused the Health Secretary of withholding health data. They are criticising this ‘wall of silence’ and questioning the government’s excuse of waiting lists and pandemic delays. The MPs say, “There is no place for blind faith.” Show us the data that supports your case.
The MPs believe potentially critical data – which maps the date of people’s COVID-19 vaccine doses to the date of their deaths – have been released to pharmaceutical companies but not put into the public domain. The leader of Reform UK, Richard Tice, said there was a “serious problem” with thousands more people dying than expected and suggested the side effects of coronavirus jabs could be responsible.
NZ Health Crisis Deepens: Data Censorship, GP Shortages, and Unaddressed Sickness Surge
Here in New Zealand, the government has deftly sidestepped the problem by making discussion of the data linking death and Covid vaccination status a criminal offence. Hence Health Minister Dr Shane Reti was able today to blithely announce ambitious and unrealistic health targets without any possibility of anyone questioning what exactly is going on—how many are falling sick with what and why.
Dr Reti made a brief foray into causation saying “Fundamentally, general practice is broken, and it’s been broken for a number of years.” An article in Stuff entitled Cancer patient says she couldn’t see GP for six weeks amid workforce ‘crisis’ lays out the extent of the problem. Yes, there is a need for more funding, but critically the article makes reference to comments from health professionals identifying “the growing complexity of patients’ needs”. A nod to the alarming health statistics that we have been reporting week after week.
Reti also made a reference to ‘bed blocking’, the belief that people are piling up in emergency departments because elderly patients are taking up hospital beds for long periods since there are no adequate care options at home. None of this amounted to a credible policy, because it fails to address the huge increase in rates of sickness among young and working age people, which has overwhelmed our health service. Particularly telling are the cases of turbo cancer and unexplained sudden death which have begun to dominate our newspaper pages.
Urgent Action Needed: Government to Speed Up Health Data Release Amid Growing Crisis
The government has announced a programme of public consultation to expand the terms of reference of the Covid Inquiry. The Inquiry will take years to report, meanwhile people of all ages are falling sick and finding it hard to get treatment. Rather than waiting for a ponderous inquiry, the government needs to act now to release critical health data for public view and discussion. Only in this way can it mobilise and fast track the required analysis and action.
Last week we reported on The Need for a Comprehensive Health Service Audit. The first 100 days of the new government have flowed past without dynamic steps to identify the causes of the health crisis. This cannot be safely postponed. Lives are at stake. This is not a time for excessive secrecy and a pretence of competence. The facts are being ignored or hidden.
