The Irish Tales

Second Life.

It is a sad but undeniable fact of Second Life, that one’s body is not, shall we say, as perfect as it might have been in First Life. It would not be too much to say that said bodies often bear little resemblance to each other. I know mine doesn’t. Certain bits are missing, other bits are made not of flesh, but of steel and plastic. (Which, I have to admit, is great fun when going through the metal detectors at airports.)
Still more bits simply do not work in the fashion that was originally intended. I blame horses, motorbikes and drink, in that order.The difference is, when one is young and healthy one believes that will always be the case. It comes as something of a shock to find out that this is not actually so.
But hey, there is always BUPA to provide immediate care and atrtention, so why should one worry ?
Then, the unthinkable happens ; one loses one’s BUPA cover and has to go…elsewhere.
For this and other reasons, the magnificent Mellissa Kite’s recent article on the NHS struck a painful chord.
Once upon a deadline, I wrote some advertisements for Nursing Recruitment, as briefed to us by the COI – the Central Office of Information.
In those days, the COI was a relatively small civil service office tasked with informing the public about the need for a flu jab, asking for blood donors, explaining the Green Cross Code and producing other worthy public information films.
(These days, it has become the de facto propaganda arm of 10, Downing Street, charged with putting across the party message, whilst charging the taxpayer for the privilege.)
As part of our briefing, we were shown around various hospitals and what struck the young me most forceably was not the impeccably clean and smart uniforms, nice as they were. Not the clear sense of discipline and respect shown by the lowest nurse to the highest matron. Nor was it the almost unbearable cleanliness of the wards. (Being a child of my time, I expected all this anyway.)
It was the compassion and respect for the dignity of the patients which really stunned me and made me want to write ads that would recruit such angels.
Fast forward two decades and I find it all seems to have been lost. Of course there are still many wonderfully devoted men and women in the NHS.
But they are overwhelmed by the paperwork and the politically correct doctrines and out-numbered by those who seem simply to see it as just another job, ranking not much above that of a supermarket checkout assistant.
And so, in recent times I have seen sights which I never thought imaginable in an British hospital.
A double-amputee veteran of Korea, forced to plead aloud for assistance to move his bowels and then to suffer the further humiliation of being cheerfully told to do it in full view of the whole ward and not to make “such a fuss.”
Mixed wards, where grandmas at the end of their lives, with innumerable drips reaching into their canulas and their gowns open to reveal all that they once were, made to cry for water in front of young men with “sporting injuries”, whose disgust was writ large on their faces.
So-called “teaching hospitals”, where the specialist in charge would burst in like a bull in a china shop, his students scurrying after him, as he loudly announced his presence and the nature of each patient’s illness to all and sundry, never mind the nature of that illness which, might, just might, be rather embarrassing.
(I often wondered exactly what that taught those youngsters about caring for the sick.)
I have heard old men and women, mumbling apologetically, in a hushed tone, for wetting their bed. Only to have some 19- year -old announce their shame to any who were still awake – which would be every patient who wasn’t slumped on a morphine drip.
I know this sounds like the rant of an old man, but do bear with me.
The NHS with which I grew up and for which I was asked to write advertisments, would never have condoned such behaviour. But the old NHS does not exist any more. And neither does the old COI. Once it was considered an honour and an opportunity to write ads for them. Not any more.
Here are the facts, which Gordon would rather you paid no attention to : Since 1997, when New Labour came to power, the staffing of the COI has increased by xx%. The various budgets allocated to various projects has increased to XX%. Of these projects, very few of them are about crossing the road safely. Almost all are badly disguised plugs about how great the government is and how we should all be aware of what they’re doing to make British people better off. Aye.
A good friend of mine, a freelance TVcommercials producer, recently accepted a project for the COI. He is one of the top five freelancers around and is well aware of what the COI has become. But, times are hard and work is work, so he took the job on. He lasted about four days. Then he attended a meeting where the Government minister responsible for funding the task at hand abruptly declared that he wasn’t interested in how much was wasted developing the campaign because they had millions to spend on the whole thing. In fact, the only thing which really concerned him was whether the commercial would make his department look good to the suckers who were paying for it. (That’ll be you and I, then.)
It was a bridge too far for my friend. He resigned from the job the next day, on principle, despite knowing that this could very well damage his future prospects in the business. And you know what ? Amazingly, it didn’t. He was astounded at the messages of support he received when the news broke about his action, which in such a small world did not take long.
So, just as there are good,decent people in the NHS, there are also good, decent people in advertising. But in this age of the bean-counters and the spin doctors, they are shrinking by the day.
With regards to advertising, this may not matter that much.
With regards to the NHS, it’s terminal.