ANOTHER VOICE
Why can't he keep his yellow toes to himself?
AUBERON WAUGH
On Tuesday of last week, the Office of Health Economics, a body funded by the pharmaceutical industry, published a report saying that national spending on health care will rise to more than £40 billion next year, which it wrongly supposes to repre- sent £640 per man, woman and child (in fact it represents £702 per head); which sum will divide into £35 billion spent on the National Health Service, £5 billion on pri- vate health. If this £35 billion is divided between the 56,972,000 men, women and children in Britain, it might suggest that we each spend £614.34 on the NHS every year. In fact, NHS charges bring in the best part of £1 billion, which reduces the taxpayer's subsidy to £34 billion, or £596.78 per head if all heads paid tax and if they all paid the same amount of tax.
In fact, of course, by no means every man, woman or child in the country pays any tax at all, and taxpayers all pay differ- ent amounts. After playing around with a calculator I reckoned that my personal con- tribution to the National Health Service was somewhere between £8,000 and £9,500 per annum, for which, so far this year, I had made precisely one visit to my local GP. So it was with a slight sense of grievance that I returned, alone, to my flat in Ham- mersmith at 11.30 on the evening of Tues- day, 25 August, after dining with friends in a Korean restaurant. On arrival, in response to some irregular promptings, I went to the lavatory to defecate and was somewhat alarmed by the colour of what emerged. Attributing it to the unfamiliar Korean food, I went to bed and composed My thoughts for the morning. The OHE Report, whose purpose, as revealed by Professor George Teeling- Smith, the director, is to urge another £10 billion annual expenditure on health, repre- senting 5p on the standard rate of income tax, avers that death in middle age has been much reduced by the arrival of the National Health Service. That seems laudable, although it also points out that life expectancy — 73 for men, 78 for women is now seven years longer than in 1948. Is that necessarily a good idea? Hidden within those figures are hundreds of thousands of miserable, lonely 80- and 85-year-olds in Poor health and failing awareness, tens of thousands of human vegetables, officiously kept alive for months, even years, being turned like an omelette twice a day, insen- sible, on a drip. Nobody would wish to be kept alive in those circumstances. The only purpose of these unfortunates is to fuel the great NHS employment juggernaut.
At a quarter past two in the morning, vis- ited by the same irregular promptings, I went to the lavatory and was more irritated than alarmed to find that I had produced about a quarter of a pint of fresh red blood out of my bottom. The irritation was due to the fact that I realised I would have to do something about it. I could not blame the Korean kimchi (a delicious sort of pickled cabbage) and go back to bed. All my plans would be thrown out. I was to be collected at eight in the morning by a New Zealand television company to discuss the royal family's problems. At ten I had an impor- tant board meeting for an old people's magazine with which I am connected. At one I had the annual Literary Review Grand Poetry Prize lunch, and then I had to do an evening pilot television pro- gramme for the new Wogan show, Friday Night. One does not like to let down Ter- ence, from whom one has received nothing but kindness over the years... none of which was easy to unscramble at a quarter past two in the morning before going into hospital.
My lack of alarm was probably due to the fact that I felt no pain, no discomfort, even a faint pride in my achievement. No icy hand gripped my heart. To the extent that I thought of death, I found myself contem- plating it with a strange equanimity. I took a minicab to the Charing Cross Hospital, reminding myself of Betjeman's lines:
The man who smiled alone, alone, And went his journey on his own With 'Will you give my Wife this letter, In case, of course, I don't get better?' Waits for his coffin lid to close On waxen head, and yellow toes.
This spells hutnillyaslzun for thousands of young people.' No sooner was I admitted to the casualty ward than I entered an enchanted land. Dozens of people were around at 3 o'clock in the morning, all friendly, good- humoured and efficient, none of them remotely bossy or patronising. I was told I would have to wait an hour before being seen, which seemed perfectly reasonable. If the NHS kept spare capacity to treat every new admission immediately, it would have to employ the nation's entire workforce, instead of only half of it.
After I had proudly produced another half pint or so of blood they went and woke up the assistant registrar to look at it. There being no other beds available, he put me in something called a High Dependency Unit — not quite as grand as intensive care, but second-best thing. For most of the time, four highly qualified staff nurses looked after four beds, one of them empty, with an array of technological equipment like the cockpit of an airliner.
This, again, was an enchanted land. After a few hours the bleeding stopped, rather to my disappointment, and next day I was moved to the endoscopy ward to be endo- scoped. Even there, everybody was cheer- ful, kind and efficient. Here, although the corridors are disfigured by the usual Nazi- style injunctions against smoking, ashtrays are also supplied for those who choose to disregard them.
In short, the whole vast milling employ- ment racket is a taste of heaven on earth. After the endoscopy, through which I slept like a baby on some mild tranquilliser, I was told that there was nothing wrong with me; my symptoms, which had cleared up of their own accord, were only to be expected in a gentleman of my age who prefers a high-protein diet.
It goes without saying that three-quarters of the money spent on health is money wasted. In the course of those two and a half days, I probably received my £596.78 worth. As to the other £8,500 which our crooked tax system requires me to con- tribute towards everybody else's health, what would I spend it on if I were allowed to keep it? More Korean meals, of course, more protein.
The NHS may be a shocking waste of money, but if it can produce little corners of happiness and goodness like this — self- contained cities of pleasant activities within the great despairing one of London — then it must be a worthwhile cause.
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