THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

Karmacat · 25 January 2017 at 3:34PM

mardatha wrote: »

Well I've been slagged in here before for saying this, but I watch Russia Today and I watch Al Jazeera. You have to sometimes dig for articles relevant to us, but between those two and ZeroHedge the news is a hell of a lot more interesting than on the BBC. Well the things that arent even on the BBC are interesting...

Thanks Mar - just had a look at the headlines on RT, they're mostly things that other sites are covering, but some aren't, there's interesting bits on Russia and South America. Haven't got to AJ yet

As for the NHS

I'm very glad that my mother's town was a sort of ghetto for elderly pensioners and rich footballers - we had a great deal of help in her final illness in both November and December.

But it's hard to understand that in lots of areas in this country, cancer operations are being delayed, because of A&E needs. Cancer! I'm certainly working on getting hold of as many OTC medications as I can, as well as bandage-substitutes and dressings of various sizes, from experience I know that a wound of any size needs a *lot* more dressings than you might think.

westcoastscot · 25 January 2017 at 5:30PM

Yes, 2.4 apparently - didn't feel a thing up here but everyone around me did - it shook sofa's apparently, felt like a lorry really close to the house? Not sure how I missed it since my house is made of kindling and about as thick :-)
We're heading into gales again, so been battening down the hatches - have to head down the coast tomorrow so fingers crossed it stays reasonable.

Interesting to hear the discussion around news sites, have to say that at this point in my life I don't pay too much attention to what's going on in the wider world - stick to BBC and Guardian mostly, alongside the local paper. It's all just too overwhelming, so I leave my children to the political activism these days - they have my permission to get outraged on my behalf when necessary. Through my work i'm busy fighting small fires for people hereabouts :-)

NewShadow · 25 January 2017 at 5:43PM

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

If what we dont hear is even more of an eye-opener than that mini-series currently running on tv - then gawdhelpus. Think it's called "Hospital"? It's a true life thing of events in hospital - complete with showing all the fighting about an inadequate number of beds v. people needing them.

It's about as true as benefits street...

GreyQueen · 26 January 2017 at 7:55AM

One of my pals is an ambulance dispatcher. He's told me tales of looking for the nearest ambulance to the casualty and having to brow-beat the crew into attending (i.e. actually doing the job they're paid for). Frightening.

In urban areas, he tells me it's pretty easy to triangulate the caller's whereabouts using their mobile signal but it's harder in rural ones. In this city, there are several roads inside the city limits which are several miles long but have the same name for all their length. Therefore, if someone says there's been an accident on the Blankety Road, it could be in any number of places.

A few years ago, I had to call roadside assistance to a brokendown car of my brother's. I was map-reading and thus knew exactly where we were, the road number, compass direction and the nearest junction. When the guy arrived with the low-loader to drag the dead car away to the garage, he thanked me for the precise instructions. Told me that the majority of people don't know where they are, can't even tell you whether they're south or north of the nearest town on that A road and he can have to spend time driving up and down both carriageways looking for breakdowns and checking if they were the right breakdown.

I have to say that I think the NHS hasn't got the capacity to cope with a major outbreak of infectious disease. I don't say that to derogate their workers, it simply is how it is. Unless and until we're prepared to fund capacity in systems to stand idle 99% of the time, this will always be the case.

SuperGran has been talking to the police officer dedicated to be the liason between the homewatch and the police. Regular meetings haven't happened for the past several months. The reason is that the police have had several murders. A murder doesn't just take up detectives' time, it takes up a lot of general policing hours, even the basic level of guarding the site 24/7. If there is a murder elsewhere in the region, city officers are drawn away to that.

Add to the closure of many rural police stations (even my hometown of 30,000 has only a part-time police station) and you can pretty much say that if you hit three niner, it'll all be over by the time the police get there.

Therefore, the police become less of a crime-fighting organisation and more of a crime-recording one. I don't derogate police officers either, btw, I've had many amicable encounters with them and they do a job which involves dealing with those the rest of us would rather cross the road to avoid.

The question I want to ask, if anyone has any clue is: WHERE HAS ALL THE MONEY GONE!?!

Seriously, this is a wealthy country. Can't say I've noticed us getting gouged any less for taxes, licenses etc etc. But all these things we rely on are suddenly unaffordable and even the roads have more holes than Swiss cheese? So, where has all the money gone?

pineapple · 26 January 2017 at 8:56AM

GreyQueen wrote: »

Therefore, the police become less of a crime-fighting organisation and more of a crime-recording one.

Where I lived a year or so ago a local antiques dealer had a run in with someone. Days after, a vehicle was seen cruising back and forth past the shop. Days later, the place was broken into. The whole thing was recorded on CCTV. He said either the police weren't interested or didn't have the resources to pursue

Si_Clist · 26 January 2017 at 9:00AM

GreyQueen wrote: »

... So, where has all the money gone?

Gosh. I started typing an answer to that, but gave up when I realised how long I'd be sat here ...

GreyQueen · 26 January 2017 at 9:06AM

Several times in the course of my work, I've had members of the public who've been the victim of crimes say, when I've asked them if they've reported the incident to the Police, that there's no point as they don't know who did it.

Even allowing for the wrong-headedness which one occasionally encounters, there seems to be a perception that unless you can hand the villain to the police on a plate, they're not interested.

A neighbour (now ex neighbour) who worked two jobs to afford his modest home, let his dog out into his fenced back yard for a piddle in the small hours. She went off like a rocket after the two men who, unbeknownst to him, were breaking into his shed at the foot of the garden to steal his motorbike. One lived just across the road.

With the help of his dog, he apprehended one of them and brought him indoors with a bit of a scuffle and called the police. Their reaction? Oh, the villian had been slightly hurt in the scuffle and the householder was cautioned over that.

Not that I would be physically wrangling with villians (I'd've let the Rottie play with them) but he shouldn't of, imo, accepted a caution and made them prosecute him, if the CPS would have run with it.

When I was the victim of a property crime, the Police attended for about 2 minutes, and later sent me a three line letter confirming the crime number so's I could claim on my insurance. No attempt at evidence gathering other than a few-second glance to confirm door had been forced. It's pretty much open season on the law-abiding, these days.:(

[Deleted User] · 26 January 2017 at 9:42AM

I don't say the NHS systems would fail in severe pressure from an outbreak of infectious disease to be derogatory either, perhaps I take too much at face value from the constant statements that A&E is in crisis that appear on the news so regularly and the items on patients being held on trolleys in corridors waiting in a queue to actually get in to A&E in the first place, we're constantly told of older folks 'bed blocking' because they can't be released back into their own homes as the 'care packages' aren't in place. The actual care system seems to be in crisis too and I know from my late father in laws experience that the carers he had were constantly changing and not very reliable in turning up either. I think the systems they are running haven't been able to evolve quickly enough to keep pace with the changes in society and the number of people trying to use the NHS nowadays. It's a complex and fraught area and with an increasingly elderly population I can only see it creaking and buckling under the strain imposed on it and breaking altogether despite the very best efforts of those selfless and dedicated staff who try to keep the 'old girl' up and running!

culpepper · 26 January 2017 at 10:32AM

My son went for a job interview with the NHS.. it was full time, filling in information on a computer on one side of the room after reading it off the BBC micro on the other side of the room.
He pointed out that he could write a program for it that would do the whole thing automatically thus negating the need to pay someone to be constantly sitting and typing...
They did not take him up on his offer .
Presumably there is someone there to this day, reading and typing.....

Karmacat · 26 January 2017 at 10:49AM

Culpeper I ran out of multiquotes, but thats horrendous

GreyQueen wrote: »

A few years ago, I had to call roadside assistance to a brokendown car of my brother's. I was map-reading and thus knew exactly where we were, the road number, compass direction and the nearest junction. When the guy arrived with the low-loader to drag the dead car away to the garage, he thanked me for the precise instructions.

You can't beat preparedness ...

The question I want to ask, if anyone has any clue is: WHERE HAS ALL THE MONEY GONE!?!

Seriously, this is a wealthy country. Can't say I've noticed us getting gouged any less for taxes, licenses etc etc. But all these things we rely on are suddenly unaffordable and even the roads have more holes than Swiss cheese? So, where has all the money gone?

Thats it! Yes! I don't know where it's gone, but I *do* think this whole situation is symptomatic of what's being described recently as "growing inequality".

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

... The actual care system seems to be in crisis too and I know from my late father in laws experience that the carers he had were constantly changing and not very reliable in turning up either. I think the systems they are running haven't been able to evolve quickly enough to keep pace with the changes in society and the number of people trying to use the NHS nowadays.

Last November and December during my mum's final illness, the staff were brilliant, but they spent a *lot* of their time dealing with their own bureaucracy so that they could give us the services they thought we needed. The systems they had to cope with were absolutely terrible

When my dad was deteriorating, just over 10 years ago now, we had to use private carers because he wasn't described as "acute" for most of the time, and although the carers themselves were really good, they were what you describe, Mrs LW - unreliable, late, very rushed, it was a bad situation.

It's a complex and fraught area and with an increasingly elderly population I can only see it creaking and buckling under the strain imposed on it and breaking altogether despite the very best efforts of those selfless and dedicated staff who try to keep the 'old girl' up and running!

That's exactly what concerns me, it really does.

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