Thursday, February 23, 2012

Competition Results & A New NHS?

February is nearly over and next month I will be back to Harefield hospital again for a couple of visits.
I have now received my referral for the dietitian appointment ordered by my consultant, I am a bit worried about my weight and it will give me an opportunity to find out about things that might help me with weight loss and diets to avoid. I will also be back to clinic on the 12th March for a check up.I hope before then I will be able to find out about a follow up appointment to get a review of my Bi-pap that I am still using at night and finding a bit of a pain now!!
Since I have finished my pulmonary rehab, I have not been to the gym. Unfortunately the gym I was attending went into receivership just after I finished the course.I am presently looking into a recommended gym locally that I might join and have a meeting Monday next to find out more.
If that proves unsatisfactory there is a gym in Oxford that I have used in the past that offers cheap session rates, but will cost petrol to travel to.I am still intending to start swimming soon as a extra to help with the pains I get when walking.At present I have a bit of a cold so will wait till I am 100% as I don't want to undo the good work I have done so far.
The camera club competition went okay but my pictures didn't score very high but did relatively well
X wing fighter 16/20

X is where we cross 17/20



  I was happy that the judge thought the Red arrows picture showed good movement 
We had a session the week following the competition from Brian Tufano who showed us his tips for still life photography and showed us how lighting and hand cut reflectors could be used in product shots and advertising to enhance the object being photographed.I am always impressed by his talks I have attended three now and he is such a nice bloke and so interesting to listen to.If you dont know the name he is the cinematographer who was responsible for films like "Trainspotting", "Shallow grave", "Quadrophenia", "Billy Elliot",and most recently the biopic of the life of Ian Durry,"Sex and Drugs and Rock n Roll" He has even contributed extra photography to the film "Blade Runner". I learnt a great deal and I am encouaged to try some still life photos myself in the future. I have added some of my photos to the blog in the right hand column and will change these periodically

I have also added some more people who are waiting for transplants to my blog list. The first is a lovely lady called George 21yrs she says " Small happy cheeky person...I have Cystic Fibrosis and have been Waiting for a Double Lung Transplant as of 22nd December 2011" her blog is "My Journey- The Beginning Of The End!" The second person I am now following is the lovely Claire who is also 21yrs and is presently on the kidney transplant waiting list her blog is  "My world" Clare has also started a page on Facebook for others in similar position as herself "A Helping Hand"  she would love some more people to "like" this great page and share their experiences
They are both finding the process very hard and would love some support and encouragement

Finally I would like to include a request that you thinks about  the government's health reforms that are presently going though parliament. As a retired nurse and a transplant recipient I feel what is being proposed is  not good for the NHS and its staff (my wife) and patients (Me & You). 

Before I retired I had a experience of another scheme called PFI that was used to build the unit I worked in My experience of private firms in the NHS was very poor The unit was not built to accommodate the patients with the specialist equipment and conditions they required ,but built to a standard plan to maximise profit. The catering and cleaning supplied by the company was very poor and couldn't be changed and faults with the building were numerous.The price to fix faults was taken out of patient care funds and charged at well above market rates but was also fixed by contract so no one but the company with the contract could be used. The company was based in Scotland had contractors that were not local ,so many faults waited months to fix including those which compromised patients safety.
What the government is proposing is worse than PFI and it  intends to offer private firms access to the NHS  to run services I am suggesting this is a bad move for the NHS and all patients that rely on it if you feel the same as me please sign the following petition 

  
e-petition

“Drop the Health Bill”


Let us all tell the government what we what 
NHS not Private Healthcare

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