http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1205113/NHS-pays-16-year-olds-run-swine-flu-hotline.html#comments

Another non story and another example of a sensationalist headline being totally inaccurate.

Run by 16 years olds? What you mean the manager of the call center is 16? Well no, but it turns out some of the staff are 16. Apparently working somewhere is the same as running it. Confused? Me too!

Apparently this is a matter of grave importance to the Mail, though for the life of me I can't work out why. After all the job requires no specialist knowledge and is essentially reading from a script, so a 16 year old can be just as qualified to do the job as as a 46 year old.

You would think the Mail would be happy to see youngsters working over summer and doing their bit during a health crisis. Teenagers just just can't win in the eyes of this fucking rag.

What Susan from Colorado/Texas fails to realize is that Hawking would never have become a worldwide treasure had he not been given health care in the first place. Hawking was diagnosed with ALS at the age of 21, before he was famous. Hawking got treated because in the UK and most of Europe they value all people, not just the ones who can afford health care.

In America it's like you own your disease even though you caught it from someone else who apparently owned it as well. There's no discussion about how a pandemic should be treated as a universal problem, just millions of individuals. The lucky ones, with decent insurance, get treatment for the common malady, while the less fortunate suffer.

There is also no discussion about how the money spent by currently insured people can be spent on universal care instead making it cost neutral or even less expensive. No one tells us how our car insurance rates go down because universal health covers any injuries sustained in a wreck...

- Ray, Oklahoma, USA, 12/8/2009 18:59

Try watching Fox news if you can, it's vile redneck reporting will make your skin crawl.

Or watch Charlie Brooker (yes him again) reviewing it on Newswipe on Youtube...

But the 27-year-old claims she was refused an ambulance and told to walk the 100m from her house in Leicester to the city's nearby Royal Infirmary.

The Shadow Health Minister is a paid consultant to a private healthcare company set up to rival the NHS GP service.

It has been revealed that Lord McColl of Dulwich is involved with a firm called Endeavour Health, who offer a fee-paying alternative to the family doctor.

How many patients in our hospitals are migrants? I know that the London hospital my brother worked in was over-run with people who were not entitled to care, but got it anyway with few questions, because staff were afraid to enquire too deeply for a real fear of accusations of racism.

For every hospital bed an unentitled migrant takes, there is a fully paid up citizen who goes without treatment.
- lorraine, herefordshire, 26/8/2009 12:33
Click to rate Rating 55

agree with the comments about migrants draining a health system which is already on it's knees. I recently accompanied a seriously ill friend to A&E. Not a single other patient spoke English. In fact, it looked to me as if some were attending as though A&E is some kind of walk-in clinic for minor ailments. The medics wouldn't dare tell the time-wasters to clear off for obvious reasons.

This is what our parents, grandparents and Aneurin Bevan fought for. A healthcare system for the waifs and strays of Europe. A healthcare system that criminally lets down those who finance it.
- Glyn, Southampton, United States of Europe, 26/8/2009 13:23
Click to rate Rating 24

Only consolation is they wont catch MRSA if they arent on the wards..........well done Mr Brown ,SO OUR KIDS HAVE NO HOPE RIGHT FROM THE MOMENT THEY ARE BORN. Proves we are now a third world country!
- anion, tyneside, 26/8/2009 9:46
Click to rate Rating 18