Thursday 14 February 2013

Murph Guest and Freedom of Expression

Ray 'Murph' Guest is a paramedic at the West  Midlands Ambulance Service.  He doesn't like the fact that some people have dared to complain about the treatment their relatives received at Stafford Hospital and that the Francis Report agrees with them that it was shockingly bad.

He expressed this in salty terms:-

 http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/65853000/png/_65853108_staffordfacebookphoto1.png

Specifically, he wished that  Julie Bailey would suffer a life-threatening illness. It didn't appear to strike him as at all inconsistent with being a paramedic or that it might reflect poorly on the people around him.  His main purpose was to show that they are in fact wonderful people. 

Epic fail. 

According to the Telegraph, Julie Bailey has informed the police on the grounds that:
 “I believe that this man is an ambulance controller. I am concerned about what would happen if I was to have an accident and I was to phone the ambulance service and he was there in the control room.”
Whether this is a police or a professional standards matter is not clear at the moment. Mr Guest seems to have fallen out spectacularly with his father after the death of his father's wife (who may or may not be his mother) and his father had joined Ms Bailey's protest group, Cure the NHS.   There is an element of family business here and Julie Bailey has been caught in the crossfire.

However,  Guest has established one thing clearly: some front-line staff despise the patients.  They wish them dead, seeing the maintenance of the NHS as the point of the job rather than the alleviation of human suffering.  They hold opinions which make one very much doubt their willingness to do the job without having their arses licked, such is their fury at criticism. 

At this point somebody usually jumps up and says "But it's  only him, not fair to judge etc".   But he's not the only one. He is like the pox blister which shows the corruption running through the blood.  Bailey has had a five year fight and been repeatedly rubbished.  Even now, when an inquiry and report has shown she was right to complain, the arse-covering Powers That Be are busy trying to make her seem like the unreasonable one for insisting that they must remove the corporate mask and hold accountable the individuals who failed. 

But Murph Guest has accidentally blown the gaff by sneaking out from under the control of smooth PR operators. What he and the Powers That Be really believe is that old, dying people are bloody nuisances but for whom hospitals would be clean, target-hitting places.

So let's hear it for freedom of expression. This is why you have to have a free press and free speech - otherwise you don't find out what they really think. 

Update 30 May 2013:  Nick Cohen at the Spectator reports that a campaign of intimidation has been waged against Julie Bailey.  

Update 25 June 2013: Guido Fawkes reports that a campaign of intimidation, including vandalism of Bailey's late mother's grave, continues. 

11 comments:

lilith said...

This observation is spot on. Terrifying.

Anonymous said...

there is a bigger story behind ms bailey the public don't know and the press fail to say as wont make good headlines and if you read the comment he made it was making the point that how far folks have to travel at night after 10pm and how hard paramedic have to fight to keep them alive only when you tell someone they have to bypass a hosp at the back of the house to travel 15-20 miles to nearest a/e if some one was not breathing or no pluse

it hard for familey to understand

if ms bailey thinks stafford hosp is so bad why buy flowers and chocs for the ward when her mom died and why have her own treatment done there

Anonymous said...

Anonymous (Friday, February 15, 2013 9:19:00 am), please explain how the closure of a hospital, or an A&E at a hospital, is the fault of Julie Bailey (according to “Murph” Guest).

Please explain why you think that the apparently unnecessary deaths at the Mid Staffs hospital should not be investigated.

Please explain why the pain and suffering of patients and their families should be of no concern to the safe and efficient running of a hospital. Also, explain why the opinions of these, and other, people should be ignored or – perhaps more to your liking – should they raise an objection, be vilified and intimidated into silence.

Please consider that the buying of flowers and chocolates might be before she became fully aware of the situation, or because there were staff there who she felt deserved the individual recognition that is due to them; The use of that hospital for her own conditions may be because of the very reasons you have mentioned above – that there is no alternative!

Finally, please explain why you think that the NHS should not be subject to close and intensive scrutiny, to ensure that its “customers” are given the service, respect and dignity that all customers should be given.

Radical Rodent

MTG said...

Oh, look on the bright side, WOAR. Public services provide essential employment for psychopaths, sadists and the bone idle.

Anonymous said...

Yes, funny how J.B keeps it quiet that she has elective surgery there recently. Bit hypocritical.

Woman on a Raft said...

Alas, MTG, there is no shortage of psychopaths and sadists in the private sector. The bone idle tend to get weeded out, but then so do many hard-working people who deserve to keep their jobs. It's usually the psychopaths doing the weeding.

Submariner said...

Anonymous at 5.40pm:

Bollocks.
You want to know what's hypocritical?

Hypocritical is the mindset of someone who thinks they deserve to be paid for out of general taxation to provide healthcare services to the public, but who wishing a life-threatening illness on someone to make a political point.
Hypocritical is pretending that your service is being run for the benefit of the public when your main concern is the benefit of the people who work in the service.
Hypocritical is threatening the people who try to make that service better instead of helping to root out its corruption.

Anonymous said...

so who has true freedom of expression in any part of his comment does he say that folks should not complain about any hosp not just stafford iam am sure that anyone who reads this cant give a story about a hosp of poor care, what is hard to take is like soneone said is the front persons back story, and i think the point is high risk pt are moved to other hosps away from the famileys, also there is going to come a time when doctors are going to look at cases and say its to hi risk to do any thing and send you home to die so it wont show against them thats progress.

also iam sure it was done to raise funds but we have a book when the tv or film of the book that should make good viewing

Uncle Badger said...

The NHS is a boil in urgent need of lancing.

The lengths its defenders will sometimes go to suggest there is a lot more at play here than 'mere' medical care.

Anonymous said...

should he not have a write of expression may not be a nice one but it is his

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...

" should he not have a write of expression may not be a nice one but it is his"

The right of expression is not the same as being unaccountable, or being beyond criticism, for what you say.