Natalie Solent

Politics, news, libertarianism, Science Fiction, religion, sewing. You got a problem, bud? I like sewing.

E-mail: nataliesolent-at-aol-dot-com (I assume it's OK to quote senders by name.)

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Monday, October 16, 2006
 
One door closes, another door opens. At first I thought I had me a post about the hypocrisy of rich socialists here. Today's Independent reports:
A former pit worker is to bring Cuban-style health care, administered by Arthur Scargill's daughter, to Grimethorpe ... The Oaks Park primary care centre, built at a cost of £3m, is the phoenix that has risen out of the ashes of the closure of the Grimethorpe colliery in South Yorkshire ... The Primary Oaks scheme is the brainchild of Jim Logan, Arthur Scargill's son-in-law and the one-time Grimethorpe colliery manager, who made a study of the Cuban health system.
Then the story finishes:
At the root of the project is a belief in uniting the provision of health and social care. Mr Logan suggested to Barnsley Health Service and Barnsley Council Social Services Department a proposal to amalgamate the two care sectors. But his ideas were turned down.

Undeterred, he went ahead and drew up plans for such a centre, deciding to fund the project himself.

Aha, I thought, as I added the bold tags fore and aft of the last three words, this admirer of Fidel Castro's "health reforms"* has £3m to spare, does he?

Alas for my hopes of a snarko-opp. This Yorkshire Post article dated 9 October tells the story a little differently:

At the root of the project is a belief in the need to unite provision of health and social care.

He took proposal [sic] to amalgamate the two care sectors to Barnsley Health Service and Barnsley Council Social Services Department. But this was turned down, department chiefs saying budgets must remain separate.

Undeterred, he went ahead and drew up plans for such a centre, deciding to field the project himself.

Throughout the development of the plan he worked closely with the six doctors and staff who were to work at the centre, including his own wife. Once it was complete he sought and won the funding.

Emphasis added by my own fair hand. Seeking and winning funding, presumably government funding, leaves one's socialist credentials untouched.

But I think I may still have something to post about. Look at the very similar wording of those two extracts, one from the Yorkshire Post and one from the Independent. The only significant differences between the two sections beginning "At the root of the project..." and ending "...the project himself" is half a sentence about separate budgets. And of course the fact that the Independent was wrong about the funding.

The Independent can't even copy out someone else's story right.

*Reforms? The only changes in the Cuban healthcare system that I have heard about recently are the ones that have led to allegations of "tourist apartheid" between foreign visitors and Cubans. Or is the Independent talking about Castro's health reforms vis à vis the healthcare system of the Batista regime, which fell in 1959, forty-seven years ago?


posted by Natalie at 9:27 AM

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