I think it was GK Chesterton who said that when people stopped believing in God they didn’t then believe in nothing – they believed in anything. Politics certainly seems to bear that out. If some leftwingers used to be convinced nationalisation would solve anything, the current belief of our elected masters seems to focus mainly on the magical powers of the market, and if it isn’t the market it’s simply money.
The latest tiresome example is the idea of paying GPs a special fee to diagnose more people with senility. Presumably if doctors understandably hesitate to use the word “senile”, it is either because they’re not sure that is what’s wrong, or they know that anything that implies mental incapacity would be amazingly distressing to the patient.
One could hope that most doctors would hardly be persuaded to mouth the dreaded word by the promise of a few pounds. It may be in the realm of medicine that “money solves everything” is least true. The only three medical malfunctions that I know of personally occurred in private hospitals; scandals in private care homes are common; and the track record of Serco ought to prove that purely financial incentives can’t ensure that you get compassion and integrity.
Those who really think that financial measures are, like Lily the Pink’s medicinal compound, “efficacious in every case” ought to have their heads examined.
What do you think? Have your say below
