Out Today WHO Report on Social Inequality - A Must Read!!

http://www.who.int/social_determinants/final_report/en/index.html



Closing the gap in a generation - Health equity through action on the social determinants of health

The Commission
calls for closing
the health gap
in a generation

"A new global agenda for health equity

Our children have dramatically different life chances depending on where
they were born. In Japan or Sweden they can expect to live more than
80 years; in Brazil, 72 years; India, 63 years; and in one of several African
countries, fewer than 50 years. And within countries, the differences in life
chances are dramatic and are seen worldwide. The poorest of the poor
have high levels of illness and premature mortality. But poor health is not
confined to those worst off. In countries at all levels of income, health and
illness follow a social gradient: the lower the socioeconomic position, the
worse the health.
It does not have to be this way and it is not right that it should be like
this. Where systematic differences in health are judged to be avoidable by
reasonable action they are, quite simply, unfair. It is this that we label health
inequity. Putting right these inequities – the huge and remediable differences
in health between and within countries – is a matter of social justice.
Reducing health inequities is, for the Commission on Social Determinants
of Health (hereafter, the Commission), an ethical imperative. Social injustice
is killing people on a grand scale."

Key facts on health
Spending on health per person per year: UK average: £1,400 Sub-Saharan Africa: £5 World Health Organisation’s (WHO) recommended minimum: £17
Health workers: WHO’s recommended minimum is five health workers per 2,000 people In some countries there is only one health worker per 1,000 people In Europe there are ten per 1,000 Global shortage of health workers will be 4 million by 2015
The coordination problem: there are more than 40 bilateral donors 26 UN agencies 20 global and regional funds and 90 global health initiatives
20% of UK direct aid to countries goes to health = £515 million a year Total DFID health spend is close to £800 million – this includes money we give to agencies, the UN and Civil Society

Source
http://www.dfid.gov.uk/news/files/ihp/default.asp

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Michael Ryan, Hungerford - written in 1999

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Michael Ryan. A man to be, to some extent, envied by those of us who can't get our message across. he showed his dis-satisfaction with society in the only way left open to him. he set out to destroy life. The very thing society shows us is sacrosanct he blew to pieces. Then he turned his gun on himself. Well, he was in a corner and had been most of his life. A corner where the inside of his head was festering away with pain and confusion while, to all intents and purposes, the rest of society walked steadily on having good times and getting better. But, in showing his confusion and fear in the way he did, he also did what we all know is the last resort of those at the wrong end of the enlightenment trail. He took the lives of others.

The trouble with that last comment is that, in the society I live, and he lived, in we are shown time and time again that killing is not necessarily wrong and, when no one listens, it is sometimes the most easily accessible method of saying " I have had enough". The problem is, until you do something like he did, no one listens. Even afterwards it becomes too easy to justify his actions as those of loner rather than those of an adult that no one would listen to. It is all the more enlightening to see how much was spent on the victims of Michael Ryan and their relatives after he had his 'way'. Why was so little spent in the years preceding 'Hungerford', at school and afterwards, on trying to catch and help people like him before it became too late? Even now there is an outcry from local health workers and doctors for more money to be spent on preventative measures rather than on post-trauma care. Our society is fine as long as no one like Michael Ryan comes along and shows us how badly we have failed.

Michael Ryan represents the loner with mixed-up feelings about most of what society has to offer. Who represents the other groups of people, legion in this country, who have major hang-ups about our way of running society?

Having forgotten Michael Ryan what excuses will we make for the next killer who has finally had enough?

With child abuse- real, not imagined- on the increase and animal abuse rising as well, with stress related diseases increasing as well as mental diseases like Paranoia, how soon is society going to get the next 'Hungerford'?

We live in a society which is stressed to the nines- where, as long as you have money, living is a good experience- rich and rewarding for many, until someone decides to pull the plug on the satisfaction you have taken for granted up till then. Up to that moment you take it for granted that the help, that society is always saying is there, really does exist. It is only on that downward slide that you find out that the only help is words spoken by people who have little or no comprehension of the true nature of insecurity. Every single member of the health service, the social services, banks, building societies, are fully paid, and paid-up, members of the silent majority,those people who have enough sense of society to know which side of life the butter is on. Sods Law is unlikely to show them the slope towards oblivion. Middlemen are a governments meal-ticket, whichever government it is and wherever it is, no government is going to unduly disturb that buffer zone between rich and poor. If it does take from them it gives with the other hand, keeping that balance that makes it easy for these middle men to say " It's nothing to do with me" or, more to the point " There's nothing I can do about your situation".

We now live in a society which has more inner fears than it knows what to do with. Mr. Average fears lack of money more than he fears death- for lack of money is limbo. The perspiration of fear has been drowning this country for a long time now and all we are shown is how to live under water. The rich don't drown and the middle men tread water whilst we, on the bottom, suck what little oxygen we can from the box in the corner. But television, whilst giving us hope also gives us desperation. Is it any wonder that 'live today- pay tomorrow' is the credo of Thatcherism if we are constantly shown what 'real' people have in the way of possessions and freedom, in the way of good working conditions and family life. No wonder it is the negative emotions and feelings that tend to be upper-most in the minds of most people; apathy, anger, greed, selfishness, frustration. Yet, for some people these emotions don't seem to exist. Those with money from the past, those in good jobs, those whose pasts have not precluded them from the government grants and state aid for businesses. The rest of us drown and our dreams drown with us- how much better would this society have been if we had been given the chance to put in- to help in our own ways. I envy you Michael, you're out of the way now.

2008 - To reiterate - I do not advocate violence -

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Image via Wikipedia

There are days when it is all I can do to open my eyes. Forty years old, and too many simple, childish pleasures that I am unlikely ever to know drown my joy of life and paint my dawn in shades and shadows. My eyes falter and my mind reminds me of the barrenness of the future day and my eyes shut again. Then again there are those days when there is too much to do and no resources to do any of it. I wake up and my mind is instantly filled with cross-wired mayhem, this, that, this, that. How do you do even two things when there is distance between them and both involve the use of resources that only one can have the use of?

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Coffee 'n Fags... Yes 2/4/96

Image via Wikipedia caffeine in the morning

caffeine in the morning

caffeine in the morning, yes,

light up a cigarette

and make your life a mess

(-:

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They - the poem 1996

Image via Wikipedia Who do they think they are?

Mis-interpret everything-
the way they live,
the words they sing,
the work they do,
the words they say,
the reasons for their play.

Motives-
there's another matter.
Do they do the things they do
with the reasoning you would have too?
Is it clear, within their minds,
the damage that they leave behind?
Are they the cause
of the tears?
All the wars?
Every Fear?

They have it all-
wealth,
the safety of success,
the help
when they're distressed,
the right connections every time,
holidays with sunshine.

All the wonders of this world
belong to them.
Any business, worth respect,
each and every piece of land
grabbed from the clutches
of the damned.

Theirs-
the right.
Theirs-
the sane.
Their gods-
The only real ones.
Their answers-
the only ones that please.

The laws are written
with them in mind-
it is not that they are blind
or deaf to others needs,
it's just that these laws
cater to their needs.

They have simple needs-
anything they want.
They can take your hearts desire,
they can cut your only flower.
They have the power
to choose
while the non-they
have one choice-
loose.

They-
the largest sub-group in each land
they- the ruling band.
They are real
to each non-they until they
become a they one day
then they


Mis-interpret everything-
the way they live,
the words they sing,
the work they do,
the words they say,
the reasons for their play.

Motives-
there's another matter.
Do they do the things they do
with the reasoning you would have too?
Is it clear, within their minds,
the damage that they leave behind?
Are they the cause
of the tears?
All the wars?
Every Fear?

They are the problem all right.
the drain on all the countries might.
The only thing that stop this world
from getting on.
They are the cause of all the mess,
the pain,
the need for tougher measures.
Without them-
life would be so sweet.
no need for guilt trips or deceit.
No fannying around
and wasting time
trying to fit them in the rhyme.

They will never understand
our ways and styles
they miss the limits of themselves by miles.
'They' don't have the heads to cope
with all the land
we hold in trust for our kind.
This world of ours
is far to dear
to allow them near control.
The trouble is that
they don't think
or feel the same
as we do
about what's right
and positive for all of us.
If only they would work as well.
It galls to feel so wrong
when all one's trying to do
is build society anew
so that it works properly
again.
If only they would get out the way
and stop us having to enact the laws
that hurt them more than us.

Mind you, it's not their fault, you know.
If only they could change their manners,
find their acts,
get in tune with the facts.
The ghettos and slums exist
because that's the way
they like to live.
Give them anything that's nice
and watch them
trash it without thinking twice.
If only they knew the damage they were doing
to their own cause by being the way they are.

Still..... they wouldn't be that way
if they would only listened to us.

Would they?

(I think they call it Caustic (-: )

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Possibly you….

Image via Wikipedia

1st December 2006

Sometimes I get a feeling about a woman…

Depth.

Fresh water.

Careful, but real, footsteps into new, but not totally unknown, territory.

Realising she might not want to go where I want to go and the backing away until friendship sits there for any length of time they care to mention.

The getting on and doing so that who I want doesn’t get scared off.

You?

With your own sense of most things

The one that stands her ground, not because she has to but because that’s just what you do. Who you are.

You as you are.

And, maybe, even sorted.

What amazing joy there is in the first throws of relationship… such a wonderfilled time. Space within each others spaces. Intimate times of knowing and growing.

The baggage of the past weighs a lot at times.

We have had such piles of it that I am surprised our backs haven’t snapped… luckily we have managed to tip so much of it off… usually right onto our relationships in progress… crippling what was growing well.

Finding answers that work without other distortions works well for me. Learning by listening. Learning by letting out our deepest thoughts and feelings, joys and frustrations… clicking the missing links into place.

Allowing space and movement in and around new circumstances to fill us with clarity of breathing and living.

And, if I’m lucky - which I usually am - a form of telepathy that gives me use of your eyes to see different things or your brains to imagine a differing scenario or your ways of dealing with other humans so I can understand
more of what I missed out on.

And, if we are even luckier… we end up with something we are enjoying on many levels so the balance feels right.

That feeling of rightness.

Oh, yes. That feeling of enjoyment…

Me… and Her… whoever She may be

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05/11/2007 15:11:00 Monday, 05 November 2007

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I ran out of Tegretol on Friday night without realising it so that, on Saturday night, I suddenly had none and had to go through two days without it.

This shouldn’t have made much difference to my life but it did.

On Sunday night I was very twitchy and odd and couldn’t sleep. I had the runs and felt odd. I kept smelling a strange ‘old fashioned’ metallic type smell which I can only presume was an aura… It smelt like one of those smells you have smelt before. It wasn’t anything I could pin down.

I couldn’t sleep or stay in bed very long and I started to feel panicky. I finally slept at 7.30am until 10.30am when I woke up even more agitated and soaked with sweat.

I was distressed and couldn’t talk slowly or clearly or look any one in the eye for more than a split second.

I had no calling credit and my phone was off for anything other than emergencies but, luckily someone had lent me a car so I drove down to the surgery and asked to speak to the receptionists privately. They let me through into the back room and I sat, sweating and mumbling about my pills and feeling weird.

They got me into see the doctor whose name I have forgotten already and she has arranged for me to see my doctor on Wednesday morning.

My blood pressure was 163 over 90 which was what it dropped down to before I left hospital in December 2006 after my heart attack.

I wasn’t on any other drugs at the time.

This episode seems to have been caused solely by the stress of my upcoming tribunal and the removal of Tegretol – a mood stabiliser and anti seizure drug which was added to my list of drugs a few years back when it was found that the Epilim on it’s own did not stop my fits… A friend pointed out that the sort I take is not the time release variety I asked for a few years back when this same problem kept cropping up because of my, then, worse state of mental health.

I took 600mg of Tegretol straight away (my normal evening dose – it was initially set at 1800mg when first prescribed but my head felt so bad I had to cut it down to the dose that makes me fit free without feeling ill) and went and sat with a friend and had a hot drink.

Within an hour I was at the other end of the scale and talking non stop – hyper. But feeling much better. Three hours later my physical side crashed and I am now at home resting… my mind is still racing but is slowing down.

18:39:28

Woke up after a sleep feeling muggy, drained and tired.

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Banjaxed!

Image via WikipediaBanjaxed

That's what I feel

Wend has just left for a concert / festival thing called Cropredy, Fairport Convention's own folk festival , but before she went we were sitting in front of the view eating toast and talking about life in general.

It was then that I decided to start this bit of this blog with that word.

Imagine being a nobody who is quite happy to be what he is but he has it stuck in his head that he has to follow through with something that could help a lot of people to have more enjoyable lives ... and all that.

So, banjaxed over something that is going to be or not, i wonder out into the light of a bright new morning - been up since 7.15am. Beautiful day.

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