An Open Letter to Jackie Doyle-Price MP

The following letter has been sent to the Thurrock Gazette, the Thurrock Enquirer and Your Thurrock.

Dear Ms Doyle-Price,

I was wondering what your opinion was on the cuts to the funding of vital services in Thurrock is as you seem to be extremely quiet on the subject.

I refer to the cut in funding through Thurrock Council to the excellent service provided by Family Mosaic that provides, amongst other things, support workers for individuals who are at their most vulnerable and in the most need of help. 

The cuts, due to take effect at the start of April, will mean that home visits to a great deal of Family Mosaic’s clients will have to be halted and those clients who are affected will have to travel to one of the new ‘hubs’ that will be set up.  The need to travel to a ‘hub’ site will not prove a problem for some, such as myself, but there are two major hurdles that will present problems for the affected individuals. 

The first problem is quite a major one for a vital service – with only a month left of the current funding, the sites for the ‘hubs’ have not even been found yet which is putting pressure on Family Mosaic and increasing the stress on the clients who rely on the service.

The second problem is that the locations chosen for the ‘hubs’ may not have the privacy required for clients to discuss some deeply personal, deeply distressing issues without fear of other people hearing those issues.

The cut to Family Mosaic’s funding by Thurrock Council is, however, not the fault of the council but of the Government of which you are a part which is savagely cutting the funding of everything that isn’t nailed down.

Where is your outrage, Ms Doyle-Price?  Where is your voice of protest in the defence of your constituents, the people you say you represent?  Your silence is deafening.

And what about the state of the staffing of sheltered housing in Thurrock where wardens are being moved from one group of units to another without a thought for the need to build up a rapport with the residents of a single unit or where some groups of units are left with no on-site cover?

The problem is that moving the staff around is no help to people who need to have some sense of continuity in their lives, continuity that could be provided by a permanent on-site warden.  Permanent wardens for each group of units would improve the care that residents are given as each warden would have the time to get to know their residents and their quirks, foibles and care needs thus be able to anticipate future problems.

There will obviously be times when a warden due to illness or annual leave won’t be available but some of the vulnerable people who live in such accommodation can cope with such short-term disruptions.  This is not the case when disruptions are the norm.

I do some voluntary work with a couple in the “warden assisted” accommodation in Dexter Close (I use quotation marks advisedly as there are occasions when there is no on-site warden) and, whilst there is a warden on-site at the moment, that situation is only short-term and only for three days a week.  At all other times, the residents are restricted to the help that arrives from off-site in response to a pull of the emergency cord in their property.  This is just not good enough.

This lack of on-site help and built rapport with a permanent warden has led to the situation that the couple I work with on a voluntary basis have on a number of occasions called me on the phone for help because they trust me and have a rapport with me.  I live a 20 minute walk from their property and have a life of my own that has to be put on hold to help them because there is no on-site help available (and at the time, according to them, the emergency cord wasn’t working to summon assistance).  Is this the situation you feel is right and proper for your constituents, Ms Doyle-Price?

Is your silence on these matters because you don’t know they are happening?  If so, why don’t you know?  Surely as the representative for Thurrock you should know exactly what’s going on in the area?

Is your silence because you don’t care?  If so, how can you say you represent anyone in Thurrock?

Or is your silence because there isn’t a lovely photo opportunity with a member of your party’s higher echelons in it for you?

Do, please, tell us, Ms Doyle-Price because some of us are desperate to know the answer to one very important question –

Who do you serve?

Waiting impatiently for your reply,

Myles Cook, Grays

If I get any response, it will be published right here.

The hypocrisy over euthanasia and assisted suicide

The UK’s Government, the National Health Service and the legal system and its enforcers are hypocrites when it comes to euthanasia and assisted suicide because if an individual makes a conscious and reasoned choice to wish to end their life but cannot do so without help, the person who assists in the suicide is deemed a murderer.  How can this be the case when the assisted suicide is a voluntary act by and for the individual?

The hypocrisy of the aforementioned agencies becomes clear when, as I mentioned in the addendum to my article, The Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide Debate[1], they allow and even encourage involuntary euthanasia via the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP).  The LCP is supposed to be an end-of-life care pathway for terminally ill patients but reported incidents have shown that older non-terminal patients have been put on the pathway involuntarily without their knowledge or consent or that of their family.  While this may not be acknowledged as Governmental consent, the fact that it goes on and must, at some point, be reported in briefings for the Secretary of State for Health, it does indicate tacit official Governmental consent.

So, the Government allows involuntary euthanasia of terminally and non-terminally ill patients by members of the National Health Service yet these acts are not considered murder by the legal system (if they are even reported at all) so why are people who help someone commit suicide considered murderers?  It is not as though governments all over the world legally sanction murder as a matter of course anyway.  In fact, they not only officially sanction murder, they also train murderers to kill; the only differences between an unsanctioned murderer and a sanctioned one is they name they are given – murderer or soldier – and the fact that the former is hated for their crime and the latter is hailed as a hero for their acts of bravery.

The only reason that soldiers get to kill, usually without criminal prosecution, although there have been some prosecutions, is because, in the law of England and Wales, provision is made in the legal definition of murder to absolve soldiers in times of war.  This provision states that murder ‘under the Queen’s peace’ is a crime; therefore, in times of war, the crime of murder does not exist for soldiers although it still exists for civilians because they are technically still living ‘under the Queen’s peace’.

I’m not trying to blacken the reputations of our armed forces because they do a fine job but we also have to acknowledge that, whether they do a necessary job or not, they are trained to kill.  Our armed forces take human life which is the very definition of a murderer.  They are just officially sanctioned and just following the orders given to them by their superiors who likewise get their orders from the Government of the day.  The murders that they commit are usually not on home soil either so that is another mitigating factor.

Some might say at this point that a murderer kills for some kind of personal gain but I would counter that a soldier kills for gain too; it’s just not a personal one.  The war in Iraq was fought not because of some vague possibility of that country holding weapons of mass destruction, although that was the reason given by both the UK and US Governments, it was to guarantee the supply of oil from that country – a gain for the countries involved.  War is a game played by politicians for personal glory and national gain.  Soldiers are the pawns used to play the game and officially sanctioned murder is the method.

It would be neglectful to fail to mention that the current UK Government is also guilty of acts of officially sanctioned involuntary euthanasia and assisted suicide through the horrific welfare ‘reforms’ that have been responsible for 10.600 premature deaths and suicides in one year alone [2] and many more since[3] [4].

So, with all this officially sanctioned involuntary euthanasia, assisted suicide and murder, why is it still a crime to help someone voluntarily commit suicide?  Yes, there should be safeguards in place but if someone wishes to have help to commit suicide, why shouldn’t they be allowed that help without their assistant getting prosecuted?  If a person can provide a well-thought out and cogent argument for an act of voluntary assisted suicide, shouldn’t they be allowed that option?

I am currently being seen by the Crisis Resolution Home Treatment Team due to my current mental health crisis.  On the last four or five visits I have asked for the visitor to help me find a healthcare professional to help me die but they have refused on the grounds that it’s not their job to help someone die but rather help an individual carry on.  I countered with the fact that the Hippocratic Oath states “First, do no harm” and that prolonging my suffering is doing me harm.  I have lived in darkness now for 36 years, suffering the tortures of the damned every single day and I have had enough.  I can provide a well-thought out and cogent argument for my wishes and it would be a voluntary act for my part so why can’t someone have the guts to help me end my life the way I wish it to be ended?  With all the officially sanctioned involuntary euthanasia, assisted suicides and murders going on, why can’t the Government allow me the luxury of an officially sanctioned voluntary assisted suicide?

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[1] http://valen1971.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/the-euthanasia-and-assisted-suicide.html

[2] http://blacktrianglecampaign.org/2012/10/04/10600-sick-disabled-people-died-last-year-within-six-weeks-of-their-claim-ending/

[3] http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/2012/04/32-die-a-week-after-failing-in.html

[4] http://calumslist.org/

The latest instalment of “My Life Sucks”

I’m finding it very hard to even drag myself out of bed at the moment (and by ‘bed’ I mean the folded over duvet on my sofa).  Life seems to have very little meaning for me, having no money, no income, no job, no voluntary work and no one to talk to (and I mean really talk to).  I don’t want to inconvenience my friend because I no longer do the work we used to do together and we don’t really have any mutual interests as we tend to fall back into talking about the work I used to do with him which does nothing but depress me further.

I’ve been seen by the Crisis Resolution Home Treatment team every couple of days for the past two or three weeks (time really doesn’t mean a lot to me right now) but all they have done is upset me each time they’ve visited and the last three times I’ve ended up in tears.  I know they are trying their best but I’ve kind of given up now.  I’ve asked them to find a doctor who will help me die because I know I’m not going to be able to kill myself.

Dad’s cancerous polypus has still not been removed.  Apparently the operation is going to be a larger affair than the doctor previously believed it would be because they cannot distinguish between the ‘gunk’ (obviously a technical medical term) and the polypus in the area of the growth so they are unable to find the root of the polypus without an MRI scan and another CT scan.  So, Dad has had to wait longer for the operation than was first thought which is worrying Mum so I can’t really burden her with my problems.

The MRI scan is being done today at some point so that’s some relief for my parents although Dad is having to take a tranquiliser because he felt claustrophobic last time he had an MRI.  If it’s successful, the CT scan should be done in the next few days followed soon after by the operation.

Merlin, my beloved cat, has had two seizures in the last two weeks so the stint in hospital I wanted isn’t going to happen because I need to be here for him.  I couldn’t be in hospital while he’s having seizures because I’d be too worried about him.  I’m not sure how long he’s got left and I can’t miss more time with him than I can help.

My applications for the part-time jobs at Lakeside have all gone unanswered and they have disappeared from the website so I know I haven’t got any of them.  I haven’t given up trying to get a job though as I put my CV into the local Cash Generator shop in town for a part-time job there.  It’s not the kind of job I’d really want to do but beggars can’t be choosers.

Last Friday was my 43^rd birthday and I was more miserable than ever.  A lack of hope and prospects can do that for a person.  The only plus was that Diana managed to buy me a present – the sixth season box set of Bones – but even watching that didn’t raise my mood by much.

On Tuesday, our divorce went before the court.  We haven’t received any paperwork yet and neither of us could attend but I’m sure they will have granted it so I’m now officially a divorced, penniless depressive with no hope, no future and no one to share my life with.  All that needs to happen now is for my ex-wife and I to find separate accommodation and I’m officially the stereotypical old fart with no one except the characters that populate my mind from stories I can’t get written down.

My life sucks...