500,000 Public Sector Workers Culled

tomterm8

The_White_Horse wrote: »

there are these people who wear white coats, i think they are called doctors. i reckon they could deal with the problems you have described. in fact, if i was the parent of a child with such a problem, i would demand a doctor, not some jumped up breast feeding nurse.

A bog standard doctor costs the NHS £100k a year, compared to someone who is a specialist midwife, who is actually better trained at dealing with these specific problems, who costs 40k a year. You want to spend 60k a year more on a worse service, fair enough.

ninky_2

The_White_Horse wrote: »

there are these people who wear white coats, i think they are called doctors. i reckon they could deal with the problems you have described. in fact, if i was the parent of a child with such a problem, i would demand a doctor, not some jumped up breast feeding nurse.

oh trust you to be one of those patients. calling on doctors who are needed more elsewhere. breastfeeding (like correct diet at other stages of life) has been shown to have longterm benefits to health. i very much doubt breastfeeding techniques are something that the average doctor has been trained on. of course if problems persist and medical issues arise a doctor will step in to address those problems (which may well involve referring to a specialist anyway) but it makes sense to have more specialist staff to prevent and spot problems...and they no doubt save expensive gp hours too.

ILW

Surely women have been breastfeeding forever. Why does it now require a specialist?

ninky_2

ILW wrote: »

Surely women have been breastfeeding forever. Why does it now require a specialist?

yes and infant mortality has been around for ever. why try to put an end to a longstanding tradition by attempting to lower infant mortality rates and boost child health.

why do we even need doctors? nothing wrong with the local quack reading chicken entrails....

ILW

ninky wrote: »

yes and infant mortality has been around for ever. why try to put an end to a longstanding tradition by attempting to lower infant mortality rates and boost child health.

why do we even need doctors? nothing wrong with the local quack reading chicken entrails....

I would guess that infant mortality rates were much higher when the only option was breastfeeding. That just shows that your point is not really relevant.

tomterm8

ILW wrote: »

Surely women have been breastfeeding forever. Why does it now require a specialist?

That's a good question. The short answer is that demographics have changed, and since the 1940's many more people bring up families far away from their parents. In addition, in the 1960's a lot of women were forced into bottle feeding, and so a lot of peoples parents didn't get experience with bottle feeding.

Like a lot of things, bottle feeding comes easily to some people, others have more problems and need a little help. The support that used to be given to women via their parents isn't available to everyone, and so the state intervened, because there is quite a significant body of research that shows brest feeding improves health outcomes.

bendix

ninky wrote: »

says the person who only survived childhood through social housing, benefits, state education and free healthcare....

"consigned"? would you have rather have picked a pocket or two?

If you want to get personal, let's go there.

I had no choice in the matter. Those were lifestyle choices my dad took, and frankly that experience reinforced my sense of what a waste his life was. He was very intelligent - much more so than me - and yet was of a generation and a mindsight that prefered a life on the dole rather than taking risks and making an effort.

So, yes ninky, I think I can speak with a degree of certainty that the welfare state - in its rank generosity - destroys lives or at best enables people to take the choice to fester in it.

It's a lesson I learned well. I looked at him and swore I wouldn't ever fall into the same trap, despite being significantly lazier than him and despite growing up at a time when the ability to fall into the trap was even greater.

That experience makes me significantly better placed to make such a call than the middle class who look upon the welfare state in a patronising 'oh it's nice to have to look after the little people', yet never really see the devastating impact it can have on some people.

ILW

tomterm8 wrote: »

That's a good question. The short answer is that demographics have changed, and since the 1940's many more people bring up families far away from their parents. In addition, in the 1960's a lot of women were forced into bottle feeding, and so a lot of peoples parents didn't get experience with bottle feeding.

Like a lot of things, bottle feeding comes easily to some people, others have more problems and need a little help. The support that used to be given to women via their parents isn't available to everyone, and so the state intervened, because there is quite a significant body of research that shows brest feeding improves health outcomes.

So, if in the past people learnt these skills from their parents who were untrained. Why does it now require a highly paid specialist?

bendix

ninky wrote: »

don't quite understand the logic of this...i'm lucky because the party i wanted in power 'lost' the election. but according to you they would have done the same thing anyway. only maybe they wouldn't because the don't have the backbone. but probably they would because they had said they were going to before the election. but probably they wouldn't because they don't want to lose an election. but then they did lose and election. even though they said they were going to make cuts (that they wouldn't have made....moral backbone none etc).

hmmmmm. let me work this out.

hope your marketing messages are a little more clear.

It's very simple. Labour would have had to make the same cuts the Tories are making. They had already spelled out their plans, but of course it was easy for them to just spell out plans and look responsible, when they knew full well they would be booted out and not have to follow through on them.

That gives Labour supporters the luxury of squealing like stuck pigs from opposition about cuts the evil Tories are making which they in turn would have had to make themselves.

This was a very good election for Labour to lose. They knew it then, they knew it now.

bendix

ninky wrote: »

yes and infant mortality has been around for ever. why try to put an end to a longstanding tradition by attempting to lower infant mortality rates and boost child health.

why do we even need doctors? nothing wrong with the local quack reading chicken entrails....

You're getting desperate now. Noone is saying we don't need doctors.

People are questioning the need to have armies of pseudo-social workers charged with promoting something as intrinsically natural as breast-feeding, earning between £20-£45k per year, funded by the taxpayer.

It's just layer after layer of waste.

Frankly, I don't believe even you are comfortable defending it.