Happy World Contraception Day 2018

Probably TMI but tough titties. Today I recieved a home STD testing kit through the post. I didn't request it because I did something risky and had an 'oh shite... What if' moment a day later, I'm not displaying symptoms of an STD and in fact I'm not worried I have any of the diseases that are tested for. I ordered it because 'just in case', because condoms minimalise risk they don't eliminate it and sexually active people should be tested every year because sometimes shit happens.
So a drop of blood will be drawn from my pinkie finger, I'm going to fill a pisspot to 9ml, swab the back of my throat and stick another swab up my bum. And then I'm going to send it off to be tested. And then after minimal discomfort and without a stranger doing anything invasive I get confirmation that I'm not putting anyone else at risk and Little Allan isn't going to go green and fall off.
My point is get tested, and get tested regularly. Antibiotic resistance is a serious danger and the best way to fight it is to practice safe sex to avoid STD's and be treated for anything you have before you pass it on.
STD testing doesn't mean being sat in a clinic with your hood pulled up with a bad rash you're resisting an urge to scratch, it is something which can be done in private in a completely dignified way. My point; please get tested - it's not frightening, it's not painfull & it's not embarrassing. Regular testing needs to be just as much as a part of safe sex as condoms. Anyways..... Have fun 😉

#PlaySafe #StigmaKills #SafeSex

Why we should all support the creation of a National Social Care Service

With people living longer who are sick, funding social care is very hard. One of the actions of the current government which is very controversial is the way that they propose to fund the care of the elderly. According to The Telegraph 340,000 people entitled to home help will soon get none.

It doesn’t surprise me when I hear horror stories about the way people in care area treated. When the state cannot afford to provide a public service they often sub-contract it out to a for profit agency, usually the one who claims they can do it while charging the government the least. The result of this is people working for private care providers aren’t properly trained because the company operates on a ‘for profit’ basis; so any training beyond the bare necessities is in their eyes a waste of money, and cuts into their balance sheet.

This is also why people working for private care companies are often not paid well. I am personally aware of 3 legal loopholes that are used to avoid paying the national minimum wage to people working for private care companies in the area where I live.

The first is regards to agency work, a care home will need people to cover a shift and will ask a temp agency to provide the cover offering the NMW to the worker sent, of which the agency wants a ‘finder’s fee’ which they deduct from the already minimum wage.

The second is regards to community care; a care worker is working an 8 hour shift (for example), but they are informed that they are only ‘at work’ when they are actually inside a client’s home, the time spent travelling from 1 clients home to another counts as travelling to work, not work itself – so the worker gets paid a fraction of what they actually work. When the cost of keeping a car on the road is factored into this equation such employment becomes almost pointless, earning a few pounds per week above what they would be entitled to on state benefits.

The final one is regards to working night shifts at some elderly residential homes. At night most people would expect a worker to get a wage enhancement for working anti-social hours, but no… there are some care homes which don’t do this, in fact they don’t even pay night staff a ‘wage’, they pay them an ‘on call rate’ after the residents have gone to bed which is a fraction of the minimum wage and enhance their pay to the NMW for each our that a resident is disturbed or in need of assistance.

So I cannot help but wonder if any subcontracting of state care to private companies will inevitably result in abuse or mal-treatment due to poor training, and poor conditions. Care is a high-responsibility job, yet many carers are paid low wages… well no: the minimum wage of for minimum responsibility jobs, the major high-street supermarkets pay people a few pence an hour above the NWM to stack shelves, some of the smaller chains pay over a pound an hour above the minimum wage. And yet if someone wants to work in care, they have to have the lives of vulnerable and sick people put into their hands for a pittance? Where I ask in the incentive to do that I can’t help but wonder?

And less than a day after i read about hospitals rating there own food I find this:

Tens of thousands of people are being allowed to die of thirst every year in NHS hospitals; how f***ing stupid

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/thousands-needlessly-dying-kidney-failure-034255251.html#dNt6Inz

How can hospitals be allowed to rate the quality of their own food:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/hospitals-own-food-top-marks-231337423.html#mQlUSzB

How stupid: of course anybody being allowed to rate themselves highly will do so especially when they have a public image to maintain. I’ve seen the sorry state of hospital food on television documentaries and from working in care myself; and being subjected to that is the absolute last thing that will do any good and the last thing I would want.

Good food is a necessity to good health, which means nutritious food, not whatever can be crammed into microwavable packaging at the lowest cost. Considering the effect of food on mental health and the psychological aspect of immunity and recovery a need for good food becomes apparent.

Patients should therefore most definitely have the same right to good food as ‘government ministers, school kids and prisoners’ as the Campaign for better Hospital Food are putting it.

That being said let’s examine hospital funding and see how they make their money:

NHS rents rather than buys hospitals so as a result private companies which own our NHS hospitals can;

·         Charge for television privileges (£10 per day)

·         Only WH Smith stores not to sell books (I can only assume to pressure longer staying patients into purchasing telly privileges or magazine after magazine)

·         Car parking fees for people driving themselves in, visitors and staff

·         Only afford to bulk buy microwave meals rather than cook high quality and tasty food.

I can fully sympathise with people thinking the NHS is losing its perspective, especially when people are at times so bored if they cannot afford to pay for entertainment that they go out of there mind. I had a mate tell me about a 3 day stint in hospital and he saw on the other side of the ward someone who looked like he had been in for days: he looked like he was going out of his mind: well who can afford £70 a week just to watch telly?

People say you can’t put a price on happiness, well apparently you can; our NHS may be free at point of entry but the fee’s start going up as soon as that point is passed if you actually want the stay in hospital to be a comfortable experience.