Swine Flu? Why Not Call A Welder

The Government's National Flu Service website, which is designed to give suspected swine flu sufferers access to anti-viral drugs without pestering their doctor, crashed immediately after being launched yesterday afternoon.

Due to the sheer volume of hits, the site was down for more than two hours. Visitors to the site were greeted with a message which read, "The service is currently very busy and cannot deal with your request at this time. Please try again in a little while."

How authentic is that? Just like phoning a real GP’s surgery on a normal day!

The trouble is, this call centre/chat room is not a real doctors surgery and the person you are consulting is not a real doctor.

If you contact this hot line you are more than likely to be diagnosed by an out of work welder than someone with a medical background. The staff have had only six hours training to do this job.

There are thousands of doctors that have graduated in the past few years that haven’t found a placement, why not draft these in to man the phones and keyboards?

There has already been at least one case of misdiagnosis, where a young woman’s GP, yes GP, not welder, diagnosed swine flu when in fact she was actually suffering from meningitis!

When you add the potential deaths from wrongly diagnosed swine flu to the fatalities in the Afghan War, Gordon Brown suddenly dons the cloak of the Grim Reaper!

The Pandemic That ’Flu Out Of the Window

Some pandemic this is turning out to be. After the World Health Organisation (WHO) put the fear of God up the whole of Earth’s population just a few short days ago, we are now seeing headlines saying “Swine ’flu in decline in Mexico” and “UK swine ’flu is being contained”.

Scientists have said that it is a mild strain of the ’flu virus, at the time of writing, after Mexico has adjusted its figures, only seventeen people worldwide are known to have died after contracting it. Compare this with the quarter to half a million deaths across the world each year from your common or garden ’flu and it starts paling into insignificance!

Because of an almost daily morning smog at the seat of the outbreak, Mexico City, there are over half a million respiratory cases reported, anyway.

I know that the WHO has to look after the interests of the world’s wellbeing, but wasn’t this a knee jerk reaction on their part?

I only hope that I don’t have to eat my words!