General Chat

Merlin, that is a dreadful thing to happen, that poor man must feel beside himself sometimes.

Deanna, I do feel for the children and people who need help abroad, but it makes me mad, as Daff says, that a lot of the aid money is creamed off and doesn't reach those who it is meant for.

I wish I could do something to help the street kids and those who live on rubbish tips etc etc
In many countries there are two sides, the one the tourists see and the other side, poverty and hardship that only occasionally tourists discover and try to help with. Many people are documented as going on holiday, and being taken to poor villages by hotel staff to see the reality of life there, and end up going back time and again to help set up schools or help in orphanages etc. Yet those countries have wealthy business people who ignore their own country men and women for their own greed.
Until everyone can be less greedy, this situation will remain the same. Sadly, with the way many of our own young people are growing up wanting more and more material things, I wonder if things will ever be right!
Lizx

I think it would be rather good if the Charities ( All of them ) published how much money was paid in wages (Plus Expenses ) to their Directors,. **M**.Ps. Don,t hold your breath.

Along the same lines, I work in a GP surgery and I cannot tell you how demoralised all the staff are becoming lately. Mainly this is due to an increase in workload which I have to say is almost entirely due to the influx into this Country.

Patients from abroad are registering day after day at an already full to burst Practice. Very few of them speak English and they present at the desk, speak in their own language and then become frustrated when we don't understand them! We are then obliged to contact interpreters for them (free of charge to them).

Many times they want referrals, which they then fail to attend without notice and then come back in wanting to be rereferred (I am not saying that they are the only ones to do this, but from my experience, they are in the majority). They request letters from the GP's saying their housing is not good enough and they wish to be moved to a better area because living where they do live makes them feel "anxious and depressed". Welcome to the real world, we would all like to be anxiety free in a nice area!

The Practice has a benefits advisor who sees approximately 4 patients per week at the Surgery. At the minute, the waiting list is running to months as the appointments are filled with people new to the Country wanting to claim as much as possible. A lot of the time, they register at reception and on the form we request the date of entry into the UK. Unbelievably, even when the date is within a week ago, they have addresses on the new estates. They see the Dr and Nurse and then ask how they get to register with a Dentist and Optician. I personally am not registered with a dentist because I cannot afford it!

Only yesterday, a patient from Iran rang at 1.30 pm in the afternoon, demanding an appointment. When one was given for 11 o'clock the next day, he became abusive immediately to the receptionist, insisting he wanted to be seen that day. When she politely pointed out that surgery was full for that day he screeched at her "people are allowed to die in this Country". She calmly pointed out that we are not an emergency service and if he felt in any danger of imminent death he should attend A & E. He continued to shout at her before hanging up. He subsequently made an appointment for the next day!

I have told her if we have such a situation again and a patient (any patient) is placing unreasonable demands on the system that she should offer them the telephone number of the nearest private medical centre and give them the choice of paying for immediate treatment!

Our midwife is currently unable to cope with the amount of patients in her clinics. An audit of patients proved that the majority of patients were foreign.

There are a lot of staff within the surgery looking for new jobs. They are all long-standing and hard working staff who are just finding the present climate hard to deal with; trying to speak to people who do not understand what they are saying, people abusing them when they are trying to help, etc etc.

People call doctors receptionist dragons and maybe some are, but I just wish sometimes people could spend a day in our shoes and see what goes on.

I tell ya, it would make your toes curl!!

Carol xx

I agree with you Liz, the so called ORGANIZERS .... they get the bulk and the money sent is a pittance compared to the donation we have made.
BUT I couldn't stop.

Deanna X

i think its really bad that this govorment is sending all this money abroad .how do they know how many childern they have .any way they have not paid any thing to get child benifit i have paid stamps for 40yrs but when out of work recently i was told i could not have any benifit so how come they can ?

Hi Harry, you are right the balance is not equal. We must not forget that Britain is a very affluent part of the world and sometimes we take things for granted. We don't have the horrendous weather like some 3rd world countries do or such cruel governments. What we do have is the EU and a dopey government.
How many of us know what needs doing in our country to make it better? probably the ones who don't really have a say, which is most of us. We vote but what good has that done, we are getting worse off than ever. We know immigration should be curtailed, we know people should not just have the right to money, we should put our own house in order but trying to tell the politicians hasn't worked. Sorry got to go now or i will get in bother
Janet

Watched a very interesting programme this evening on bbc2 about the people coming from Poland to live and work in Peterboro, they can send so much money home to their families. They were prepared to work hard and long hours, but did get £7 an hour. I would want that too if I had to be outside in all weathers cutting and packing veg etc. Some of them were sharing houses with other families, some of them actually sleep outside even in this weather, in makeshift tents and cook on barbecues. It must be awful. There were some English lads outside the job centre and the chap doing the programme spoke to them, they were complaining about the foreigners coming over and taking the jobs. The presenter offered one a job for £7 an hour, the chap looked keen until he said it was cutting butternut squashes in the field, no thanks was the reply, I would rather stay on the dole! How can these idiots complain when they aren't prepared to work hard themselves. The bosses said what great workers the Poles and Lithuanians were, conscientious and didn't sit around, if they finished one job they would go and ask what next.
The irony is that in Gdansk I think it is, there is a big football stadium needed for 2012 for a major football competition and there are no men to build it because they are in England, the Poles are having to use workers from Korea etc. As there aren't enough men to be firefighters, the women are learning how to do it, and women are working in window factories.
Crazy!!
Lizx

Can,t argue with that Liz. sounds true. But whether their children back in Poland should get........

There will be very few people who do not welcome the hard working Poles over here, albeit this country is getting very crowded.

Happy days

Liz,
We have a son who lives in Guernsey,and it's full of Polish ,Latvian,and Eastern bloc countries as they are such hard workers and do menial jobs that ours won't do,so you can't blame them for trying to better themselves.
I remember the same thing happening at the end of the war,when a lot of our people wouldn't do things like road sweeping,bus driving,etc,and then they have a moan because there is no work.

We have been spoilt by the "Affluent society".
I have no gripe about those coming in to work,and worked with some Uganda Asians in the 80's,who were well educated nice people.
I think that most folk resent the ones who come here
and get benefits which our own people can't.
We have been too soft on checking the borders,and letting so many illegal immigrants loose.

Having said that,there are a lot of our people who don't want to work,so you can't blame employers for taking on good workers.

You can't go to another country to live without proving that you will not be a drain on it's finances.