Continui, Il Medico (Carry On, Doctor)

‘THE National Health Service is already staffed mainly by doctors and nurses brought in from abroad, but today we learn that most of the patients are foreigners as well.

”Welcome aboard the one-way flight to Easy Street…”

In fact, it won’t be long before the NHS gets renamed – the International Health Service.

The Telegraph claims that 95% of the all new cases of hepatitis B being treated by the NHS have arrived from abroad, while ”a quarter to a half of acute psychiatric beds in London are occupied by people who have no right to be there”.

What does it say on the Statue Of Liberty? ”Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”

On the door of the Department Of Health, the inscription reads: ”Give me your sick, your mad, your doctors and nurses, your hijackers…”

Given the mortality rate in British hospitals, the Telegraph should be glad it’s foreigners who are dying in them rather than Brits.

But the paper is too busy worrying that the country could become a ”soft touch” for hijackers after a gang of Afghanis who seized a plane three years ago were cleared by the Court Of Appeal.

The shadow transport secretary, a gentleman who also goes by the name of Tim Collins, emerged from anonymity to condemn the judgement.

”It is to be hoped the courts will end up sending a signal that Britain is not a soft touch for hijacking,” he said – before crawling back under whatever stone it was from which he had emerged.

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Posted: 23rd, May 2003 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink