Soaring hospital admissions for malnutrition branded ‘disgrace’ by politician
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
The figures, however, which have trebled in five years, could just be the tip of the iceberg, a politician has warned, as people with malnutrition needed hospital care on 93 occasions in 2012, compared with 30 in 2008. The fact that those figures could just be the tip of the iceberg is also because those are just the figures from one UK city, namely Leeds. We have, so far, no figures from other places, and especially not the capital, London.
Coun Lisa Mulherin, executive board member for health and wellbeing on Leeds City Council, said that he numbers being admitted to hospital are shocking and potentially the tip of the iceberg.
“It’s an absolute disgrace”, she continued, “that in a wealthy, modern nation we are seeing anybody turning up in hospital in that condition, but the fact we are seeing three times as many now tells us something about the changes to the welfare system, wage stagnation and the way fuel prices have gone up out of all proportion with people’s pay”.
Pressures on ordinary working are enormous and the reasons for the increase include poverty, which can prevent people buying nutritious food, the growing number of older people, many of whom are living in ill-health, as well as greater recognition of the issue by health workers.
A year ago it was revealed that more than 27,000 people in Leeds were suffering from malnutrition, which occurs when the body does not get the nutrients it needs. Lack of cash means that people are forced to choose between eating or heating their homes. Victorian times are indeed returning just as the coalition of the blues and yellows want them to be.
If the working class can be kept on a subsistence level they will, once again, like in the times of Queen Victoria (and before) become a pool for cheap labor and the zero-hour contracts that have been and are being introduced all over the place are also part of this.
There seem to be, however, even more sinister moves afoot in the entire European Union as to the dismantling of the welfare state and the safety net for which people have fought so long and hard.
On December 13, 2013 (a black Friday one can only say) the Dutch King Willem-Alexander has announced the end of the welfare state and this trend seems to be moving across the entire area of the European Union. Ireland has, apparently, told the unemployed of the country to sling their hooks and leave the Emerald Isle.
In Britain people affected by changes in the welfare system who have absolutely no prospect of getting any work and thus see no way how to carry on with life have taken to ending theirs and have committed suicide and quite a number of them by now already.
Still the Con-Dems are continuing with their assault on the poor and the working people of this country unabated with claims that they are creating a fairer society. One can but wonder in which parallel universe those people actually reside. In ours it cannot possibly be.
We need a new system, political and economical, not a new government. In fact, we need no government at all.
© 2013
