Universal free NHS care my foot.

I was going to discuss an excellent piece by Laban Tall on the levity of the UK "criminal justice system" but was distracted by a much more worthwhile and harrowing tale linked to here. Baby Charlotte Wyatt was deemed by the court not to be deserving of medical treatment, despite her parents' desperate desire for her to continue to live. This really makes a mockery of Labour's supposition that we have a genuinely free NHS which offers universal treatment solely on the basis of need. The NHS clearly doesn't. It makes Gordon Brown's weak assertion that "all our children are precious" seem like a slighty vile comic irony. They clearly aren't.

"Because she would likely never have the chance to run and play like other children, doctors decided that it was in her best interest to let her die.It is chilling to read thier words in last year's trial. Her quality of life was judged "terrible and permanent" and she was written down as blind and deaf, with no feeling other than pain. The doctors said she had no hope for a future, and would never live beyond infancy. The sooner the end came, the better, for she was best off dead.Her parents disagreed. They knew their little girl like no one else could, and in the words of Darren, her father: "you can't just throw [her] away like a bad egg and say you will have a different egg." "


What an horrendous parody of our health system. Those who most need the care are deemed to be undeserving. All our children are precious, apart from those deemed to be substandard.

Most harrowing of all is the story of somebody who was in the same position but who is know living well. Baroness Chapman of Leeds may not be alive today if this approach had always been the case. That ought to put things in perspective - and maybe knock Gordon Brown and Tony Blair off their assumed moral high ground.