I find it hard to believe this ...
 

I thought I would give this thread a Jaysayesque title;):D, a little levity before I ask about something that appears will have significant effects on you guys. Is it true what I read in your media that cuts to the NHS are already there? That 57 types of surgical procedures will no longer be allowed in North Manchester area? Some I can understand: boob jobs and tatoo removal. But hip and knee replacement??????? Gall stones? What in the sam hell is going on? Is it time to say RIP NHS?

I can understand reviewing a system in order better to deliver health care. But in wealthy countries, it should be the right of every citizen to receive free health care, free elementary and secondary education, and subsidised post-secondary education.

From a distant viewpoint, I see this government doing irreperable damage to the UK. They will probably condense 13 years of misrule into two.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

you aren't allowed to have a baby at a Blackburn Hospital anymore, you have t go to Burnley

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Call me sick but I find it funny that all future Burnley hating Rovers fans will be born in Burnley making them .... well you know, can't say it because some members get upset :D

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Sadly the cuts will affect front-line staff, and therefore patient care, instead of the myriad of well paid pen-pushers, who will escape unscathed.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

I think you will find Eric that these ops have been suspend because of the flu epidemic that is rife at the moment, as have a lot of outpatient appointments

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

The government is slowly collapsing; England better sort itself out soon!

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

From your beloved Daily Mail...

'Tens of thousands of doctors and nurses are facing the axe despite Government promises to protect the NHS from cuts, a report suggests.'

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

The optimum word is May, but you know as well as I do you could probable cut saw much from the NHS and still not affect front line services, just get rid of those Labour appointees sat in their Ivory Towers working 3 days a week on telephone numbers salaries, and it might be an idea if consultants were stopped from working self made overtime at £250 an hour

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

This is happening now...

NHS trusts in north-west ban 57 types of surgery

'The axe will fall heavily on procedures to help with the knees and hips, gynaecology (including hysterectomies for heavy menstrual bleeding), eye cataracts and nearly all cosmetic surgery.

The cuts will also affect procedures for hand and lower back pain, hernias, haemorrhoids, skin lesions, lower jaw and surgical dentistry.'
NHS trusts in north-west ban 57 types of surgery | Society | The Guardian

People will continue to live in pain, because there will be no knee and hip replacement operations. Others will remain blinded by cataracts. All because of the cuts.

Scandalous.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Guardian;)

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Pain medication side effects
Painkillers Fuel Growth in Drug Addiction - Harvard Health Publications

More people will inevitably have to resort to using strong pain killers, which will increase the amount the NHS pays out to the pharmacutical industry - so denying surgery is false economy.

Those painkillers cause other health problems - are life shortening - so eugenics policies are in action big style.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

The facts of what's happening now is reported in the press across the political spectrum.

;)

'The NHS is adopting a "dangerous path" by stopping certain elective surgical procedures to save money, the president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England has warned.'
The Press Association: Surgeons issue service cuts warning

Probably be in your Mail tomorrow.

They tend to be a little slow. Mirroring many of it's readers.

;)

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

They have a cheek when they're charging £250 an hour overtime

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

My first post in this thread stated that pen-pushers were being spared, at the cost of front-line staff, because of the cuts.

That's wrong, just as denying patients in pain surgery, because of cost cutting, is wrong.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

I'd rather have a qualified surgeon operate on me, rather than some pen-pusher on £80,000.00 a year.

;)


'...there was further controversy after it emerged that next year’s NHS funding rise is below the level of inflation – meaning the amount of money available is in reality a cut. This breaks an election pledge by the Tories for real-term increases.'

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

At one stage in my life I never had a day without pain. The diagnosis was osteoarthritis.

I used to long for a week without pain now and again so I could catch up on a lot of physical activities which I had to forgo.

Paracetemol didn't even take the edge off it. I spent a few years taking distalgesics to make life tolerable, but then the NHS withdrew it from prescription. I was prescribed Solpadine which contains codeine. I became addicted. I can remember the feeling of euphoria that it gave me.
I was a pain free zombie.

My health further deteriorated until I realised that I was surviving but not living, and the only help I could get (if any) had to be self help.

Taking responsibilty for your own health is a difficult step to take, and I admit that I wouldn't have done it unless I felt at 'rock bottom' and had 'my back against the wall'.

Now after a few years of using alternative medicine, most days are pain free, and the days I get pain are very tolerable - I don't even take an aspirin or a paracetemol ever !!!!

I still have osteoarthritis in several places (confirmed by xrays), but the pain I found intolerable wasn't due to it. The NHS failed to diagnose what the true cause of my pain was. I had to find out for myself by trial and error. Too many doctors take the easy way out and drug people to mask symptoms.

I realise that many medical conditions are not curable by 'alternative' medicine,
but don't automatically assume that yours can't be.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Once Market forces are allowed to govern medical practice and health care you are on a slippery slope.
Successive governments have meddled in health care....setting daft targets and the like.......this means that qualified health care professionals are giving the care the government thinks the population need rather than what it actually should be doing.
Successive governments have let the population think the Health service is safe in their hands.......it isn't, and never will be, because their ideas on what should be delivered is different from what the professionals would like to deliver.

In my estimation this is a way to stealthily dismantle the NHS and bring in some sort of Private health care provision(already some NHS ops are farmed out to private facilities).......and they are bamboozling the electorate into thinking that they are going to benefit by having a choice, based on outcomes.
No politician should be trusted to do right by the NHS.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

I am very very glad that I am out of it.........and will do my utmost to take resposibility for my own health for as long as I possibly can.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

I'll drink to that.:D

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Yeah ... that's what I read. I don't know if my interpretation is right, but I get the sense that NHS trusts are making their own pre-emptive cuts ahead of the expected evisceration by the government. Next thing will be the introduction of private enterprise health care facilities, and tax breaks for the well-to-do that can afford to use them. It seems that post-secondary education and good medical care are about to become the province of the wealthy, with the poor getting the shaft ... as usual.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Sounds like old Thatcher policies...business as usual then from the tories.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Ya Mancie, same old, same old, cleaning up Labours muck again

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Maybe it's a continuation of Thatcherism ... destroy the working class, with the help of major corporations who export high paying jobs to areas where wages are low and benefits and protection non-existent, and you destroy the only powerful opposition to toryism.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

But for major corporations there wouldn't be any flaming jobs in the first place:(

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

When the election result came to light the first thing that came to mind was people have short memories from the last time the tories where in power.Having said that labour were not any better.:(

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Expected evisceration? The budget in 2010-11 will be £103.8bn rising to £114.4bn in 2014-15.

Even at a time when the country is having to come to terms with how much it is spending, the Government have protected the NHS. The NHS which the poorest on our society rely on the most.

Do stop the scare mongering.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

According to Mail Online , David Cameron has attacked Margaret Thatcher for failing to "respect" the public sector . :confused: :eek:

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

It's the ultra-conservative Daily Mail, which has screaming headlines about NHS funding being slashed in real terms, because the budget rise was less than the rise in inflation.

The Tory press are the ones who are doing the scaremongering. Suprisingly.

'...there was further controversy after it emerged that next year’s NHS funding rise is below the level of inflation – meaning the amount of money available is in reality a cut. This breaks an election pledge by the Tories for real-term increases.'
Massive NHS shake-up but pen-pushers will survive with jobs running NEW system | Mail Online

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Keep reading..

"A spokesman for David Cameron said there was no question of NHS budget cuts, and that if inflation remained higher than the 3 per cent planned rise, extra money would be found."

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

I did read the 'If' bit, tagged to the bottom of the report.

Hardly noticable, after all the glaring headlines about spending cuts, and cuts in services the NHS are suffering.

Odd really.

The normally loyal Tory press leading the scaremongering.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

major corporations dont employ in this country any more,they are all in the middle east. they will soon find out it has been against their best interests as people will not be able to afford to buy their products and they will have less profit:confused:if they did employ large amounts of people as in the past there would be less crime , less people on the benefits, and some kind of structure to a lot more people who were employed.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

'The MPs cite evidence from one patients’ group that people are already suffering as hip replacement operations are postponed and referrals for pain treatments are not being carried out. As a result of the turmoil, some PCTs are reportedly now only offering to carry out one cataract operation on patients who require treatment to both eyes.'
Patients miss operations as Government 'tosses grenade' into NHS - Telegraph

Nevermind the 'In the kingdom of the blind, the one eyed man is king' guff.

Perhaps we are entering the sorry state of 'If we cure the blindness in just one of your eyes, count yourself lucky'.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

I've just had a look at the future through a pair of tory coloured spectacles like Jasay and a few others wear and the future looks good and rosie, pity reality looks a whole lot differant. :D:D:D:(

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Even rose tinted spectacles won't help you see, if you're unlucky enough to have cataracts.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

I feel It will be 13 years of labours fault. Repeat ad nausium....:D

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

It's been downhill ever since the great unwashed were foolishly given the right to vote.

:D

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

And this hasn't been happennig for the last fifteen years at least? Watching the news tonight I was dismayed to hear that GP's were to be given extra diagnostic power when I've seen that "power" fail at least twice in the past. Surely we need specialist's in place not GP's who IMHO don't know which route to take?

Having had two family members who diagnosed with a "hiatus hernia" rather than the bowel cancer they had, how can things improve??? Personally I have found that we have to push for every different procedure, ie any scan that Yanto needed I had to push for. Would the outcome be any different?? Who knows???

Whilst we as a nation maintain "open door policy" to any migrant wishing to enter our country we will never get the service we have paid for!!!!!

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

In the last fifteen years the NHS has never had so much funding thrown at it.

Much of it siphoned off into administration.

If the level of patient care rose over this time period, is a question open to debate.

Personally I think it didn't.

However, what is happening now, is that the pen-pushers are avoiding the effects of the cuts, whilst the frontline medical staff bear the brunt, resulting in poorer patient care, and cancelled operations.

That is wrong.

Reform was needed, but sadly this is totally the wrong sort of change which was needed.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Yes Bernadette I think the "shake up" of the NHS is the most frightning...
BBC News - NHS upheaval could have been avoided, leading GPs say.
In my own experience and from friends, the idea having a GP decide if he/she should spend some of thier budget on any hospital treatment you as a patient may need is a recipe for disaster.. all to many times people have been wrongly diagnosed by GP's.. and to put the added pressure on these doctors, who are afterall not specialised, forcing them to make financial decisions as well as medical will lead to many more people not getting the treatment needed.. I'll be blunt.. people will die because GP's get things wrong!

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

I usually dismiss "you can't solve a problem by throwing money at it" as empty rhetoric, a true tory cliche dragged out into debate in order to justify not spending on social programmes. However, if what you say is true, and I've no reason to doubt that it is, the cash pumped into the NHS was not used to its best effect. We have had reforms in Ontario. Hospitals were given budget targets and encouraged to meet those targets without hurting service, and, at the same time cutting wait times. Faced with this, hospital administrators quickly started doing the job they had been overpaid for. Efficiency increased without layoffs. And the delivery of first rate health care became better. However, there was never any consideration of making the patient pay for the faults of hospital administrations.

In this whole mess I detect in the tory attitude a strong stench of the worst kind of Calvinism.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

All this talk about cash pumped into the NHS being wasted is the stuff of dreams to the tories.. they feed on the bad news they manage to create via the media ... Cameron has stated the front line nurses are de-morolised.. where did he get that info from?.. if the front line services are de-morolised it is because of the pressure that is being put on the NHS by this government.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

I left the NHS some 8 years ago.......front line staff were pared to the bone then.....and from the reports of my 'still working' friends, it has become much worse......nurses crying on their way in to work because they cannot hope to deliver the standard of care that they would wish for their own family.

This was not just the result of the last government, but of successive governments tinkering with something that they knew very little about.....bringing in market forces, as if patients lives were of less consequence than a tin of beans in Tesco.

I am dismayed at the thoughts of GPs commissioning services....that isn't what they are trained to do....it isn't their remit.
And as for the red herring of giving patients more choice about where to have treatment........that is pure baloney. Most patients want to be treated in their own locality, at a safe hospital, where their friends and family can visit.

Medicine is a money hungry beast, with many treatments(especially those for cancer) costing thousands of pounds.

The government is campaigning for people to identify cancer symptoms earlier to get the targets for treatment, up to those of other EU countries(whom, we lag depressingly behind)....and yet if you come forward and are diagnosed, then it is a good chance that NICE will refuse you the drug that could prolong your life.

Mixed messages or what?

My advice would be to get rid of the pen pushers, the tiers of administration...employ more nurses and midwives, ditch the PFI...if yopu can't afford to build hospitals then you must renovate the ones you have or ask for public subscription(many hospitals were built purely on public donations.....stop doing the unecessary stuff......IVF, cosmetic surgery....if people want these things then let them save up and pay for it in an NHS hospital......I could go on and on.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

And who's to blame, people in other countries go out to work, I remember the 60s when a tradesman putting a screw in the wrong hole ment a strike, is it any wonder the major firms built their factories elsewhere, every day there were reports of strikes on the news, and usually frivolous strikes at that

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

well who else is to blame, usual Labour gumpf every body else is to blame bare us, why is it that this country is in turmoil every time Labour are kicked out of office, it sure as hell ain't because they've done a wonderful job of running the country is it:mad:

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

The problem with the NHS is that for every front line clinician there are 998 support staff 1 to 1 basis, anybody like to say that this is right

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

I doubt anyone would say that was right.

Except perhaps the pen-pushers themselves.

The government is implementing cuts, which affects frontline staff, and therefore patients are suffering, whilst the many layers of administrative staff remain, free from this government's reforms.

That is wrong.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

The government are doing no such thing and you know it, the article that started this thread was that certain operations could not be carried out until April as they've run out of money, maybe the last government didn't give them enough last April

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

I sincerely hope you're not starting with cataracts.

Headline story in the Daily Mail.

'Thousands of NHS managers due to be sacked as part of plans to streamline the NHS will now have to be kept on to help run the new system, the Government admitted yesterday'

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Can't, have already had them, you can't have them twice and whats this got to do with those cancelled operations:confused:

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Because you seem unable to see the glaring headlines in the Daily Mail, stating the fact that the cuts are affecting medical staff, whilst the pen-pushers remain unscathed.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Your one of the people who keep telling me the Mail is crap or is it only crap when it doesn't suit your purpose;)

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

£1TRILLION: Our National Debt pushes through barrier to reach £40,000 per household | Mail Online
Seeing you've become an avid reader of the gospel according to the Daily Mail G. take a butchers at this, this will warm the cockles of your heart matey courtesy of Tony Gordon and their little Darling. I trillion in debt must be hard to stomach even for you, and lets not forget that just to service this debt is costing a kings ransom every year (around £43 billion a year) more than we spend on the defence budget, and all to placate Labours Viv Nicholson's policy Spend Spend Spend, the only trouble comes is when they jump ship (anybody seen Brown or Darling since last May,no didn't think so) and its left to the next government to pick up the pieces:mad:

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

You must never lose sight of the most important fact of all and that is"WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER" no matter how bad things get we have that thought to comfort us,knowing the government cares even for us , yes even us lowly working or not classes:rolleyes:
If you believe that you believe anything!!!!!!!:rolleyes::(

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

You should never believe anything any government tells you as you'll only end up very disopinted, just think I once remember HMO SAYING THINGS CAN ONLY GET BETTER what a load of cobblers that was too;)

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Mmm ... these wouldn't be the same unwashed that manned the trenches in WWl, and within living memory, stood alone against the Nazis while the Great Democracy in North America tried to figure out how to make a profit out of the war. Social programmes such as health care, education, pensions, workers' comp don't even come close to paying the debt the country owes to the working class. A quick glance at the order of battle on July 1, 1916 will show you where most of the troops came from ... the working class areas of the UK: the industrial midlands, the north, and the industrial areas of Scotland. The extent of this obligation is carved in stone on memorials all over the UK (and Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) ... I know it seems long ago to those of you in the generations which follow mine, but it should never be forgotten. Has "Lest We Forget" become nothing more than an empty slogan trotted out once a year in November? Access to free, universal health care is a right, not an economic football to be kicked around Whitehall. The drive should be improvement. Giving more services, not fewer. Anyone who can't see the importance of education and health care as corner stones of a true social democracy has spent too much time eyeballing his colon.

I'm not directly affected by any of these cuts. What pees me off is that I have, like many Canadians, always looked at the health care system in England as a model worthy of admiration and emulation ... and now look what is happening: a new tea party in the home of tea time.

No politician in my country, however right wing in his beliefs, would dare to threaten medicare. And, as an aside, when Canadians were polled and asked to pick the hundred most influential and popular Canadians of the last century, the man picked as No. 1 was Tommy Douglas. Most of you have probably never heard of him; but, he was the "Father of Medicare." He brought us universal, free health care based on the British model.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

I've never said that.

I have stated that it does have an acknowleged right-wing political bias.

Which makes their headline stories, re: this government's cuts in the NHS, even more shocking.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

[quote=Eric;876332] Anyone who can't see the importance of education and health care as corner stones of a true social democracy has spent too much time eyeballing his colon.

Spot on.......and without them, in my opinion, there is no democracy. Social or otherwise.

We get people from all over the world taking advantage of the health care that is delivered free at the point of need....people who aren't entitled to the service, and who are draining the system dry.
There are many many ways that money could be saved....but putting the GP's in the driving seat isn't one of them

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Oh, and I was being facetious, about giving the working man, and woman, the vote.

Though I'm sure there are those who still wished the reins of power were in the hands of the few idle rich.

:rolleyes:

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

The Meek will inherit the Earth.:hehetable We are but pawns in a game of Egotistical masters.:eek::mosher:

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

That's exactly how I read it .... ;)

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

I think the meek bit was just thought up by the church.

Something for the priest, dripping in his finery, to say as he rattled the collection plate in front of the peasants.

:rolleyes::D

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Being as playfully jocular as myself, I knew you would.

;)

:D

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Aren't they? Still in the hands of the fairly idle rich,that is.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Though some don't become mega rich until they hads the reins back, like Blurghhh.

Saw Prezza on an advert yesterday. Trading on the infamy of him clouting that egg thrower.

Socialists my arse.

Succesful political whores.

Both willing to do anything to climb the greasy pole of power, and money.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

[quote=Margaret Pilkington;876341]A little confused I am .... that's my Yoda impersonation .... do you mean to say that if I, for example, crossed the pond, got sick, went to emerg at the local hospital, had treatment, I wouldn't have to pay for it:confused:

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

[quote=Eric;876492]That's right Eric.
I have seen people from countries outside the EU get expensive drugs and surgical treatment(which they would have had to pay for in their own country) and nursing care, absolutely free of charge.
The NHS is supposed to ask if the person being treated has resided in the UK for 12 months...but requires no proof if the person answers in the affirmative.

Billions of pounds each year must be lost in this way......these people are called 'health tourists'.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Just wonder how much stick I'd have got if I'd have put that so succinctly:D

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Yes, but being non-partisan, and never being a member of any politcal party, I have no particular axe to grind.

I've never even tried on a pair of those party blinkers.

:D

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

You can try mine on G if you want, I tend not to bother with um these days, that is until I see a comment my Mancie:D

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Awwww.

Sweet.

:Banane41:

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Take 'em off G.....they make you look daft! :D

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

This old chestnut must be as hard as iron from the number of times you've wheeled it out. It neglects to tell us that the national debt of over £1t includes mortgages.

Welcome to planet sensationalist.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Could you expand on this?

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

[quote=Margaret Pilkington;876513]Unbelievable ... that is just plain stoopid ... anyone visiting here better have insurance, or, if you need to be rushed to hospital, you will find yourself paying $850.00 for the ambulance ... and that's only the beginning of the bill. Health care for Ontarians is payed for out of our taxes. It's free for us. Everyone else pays full price. The NHS should be for citizens of Great Britain ... everyone else, including EU folks, should pay ... or their insurance company should.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Who's giving you your information there's nothing sensationalist about £43 million a year just to service the debt, I've always used the saying Vote Labour Pay Later never had any reason to amend my thinking;)

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

And your terminology must be applied to the Labour Governments of which Harold Wilson and James Callaghan were Prime Ministers .

When was Labour last socialist ?

I would say the post-war Labour Government comes closest , but none since in any way .

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

[quote=Margaret Pilkington;876513]Just noticed the bit about ID ... In Ontario, every resident needs a OHIP card (Ontario Hospital Insurance Program) in order to receive free services. It's photo ID, and contains all your info: name, address, phone no., social insurance no., doctor's name, next of kin, and emergency contact person. Everyone who needs medical care must have a card. Cards are free, of course; but are only available to residents of Ontario. We are fairly nice folks over here, but not into giving away free what we pay for through our taxes.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Marginally Labour could be regarded as having some socialist principles, at least until they all tore up their copies of Marx, stopped singing the Red Flag, and elected Blair as the people of middle England's princess.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

[quote=Eric;876680]
Eric, I have no qualms about people being treated for emergencies.......such as accidents, but I am talking about blatant health tourism.......heart operations, gall bladder surgery, hernia operations.......and much more.
These people may come from the Asian sub continent........stay with relatives and get the treatment without any cost to themselves.

As for EU country members, they are entitled to treatment, as we would be if we were to be taken ill in an EU country.......as long as you have the appropriate documenation...it used to be the e111....but it has changed now to something like the European Health Insurance card (not sure if I have got the name right - but it is something like that).

Like I said, billions of pounds down the drain treating health tourists.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

[quote=Margaret Pilkington;876736]You are quite right Margaret.Available on line @ EHIC.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Thank goodness for that........I didn't dream it after all.

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

[quote=Margaret Pilkington;876736]Yeah ... I got your drift, hon ... I think I should qualify what I said about health care in Ontario, and any other province for that matter. I phoned a buddy of mine who works for Service Ontario, just to check it out. So, here is the scenario: if you are visiting our city from the UK (and you were silly enough not to have health insurance for your trip) and while shopping on lower Princess Street and keeled over from a heart attack, you would be hauled away to Recycling and turned into dog food:D .... not really: an ambulance would arrive and well-trained paramedics would rush you to KGH, where (without going through your pockets to check for credit cards or cash:D ... what do you think we are: Americans!;)) you would receive the best medical care available. If you had no insurance, and could not afford to pay, the Province of Ontario would foot the bill.

However, a couple of weeks after you returned to England, some mounties would show up at your house, kick the crap out of you, taser you, and take your big screen tv and your Play Station.;):D

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

For goodness sake you two.

Get a room... and sort out your quoting brackets!

:D

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

:tongueout;):D

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

That's not nice from one of our colonial brethren Eric, is it:D:D

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

When the finely honed, witty riposte doesn't spring to mind, sticking one's tongue out will do in a pinch:D

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Bit too much moose juice the night before hey Eric:D:D

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

FYI: "Moose juice" is the nickname of the City of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. I was drinking Jack Daniels, chased with Lancaster Bomber:eek: We are kinda wintered right now ... and if you don't have to venture out, staying home and self-medicating with alcohol and THC is a good option.;):D -30 with the wind chill as we speak ... even the dogs don't want to venture too far. Maybe I should try the new drug: toryism, the opiate of the asses:D

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Dont even go there mate, harder to break the habit than smack.:D

Re: I find it hard to believe this ...
 

Hello its back, I've missed ya cashy:D