Flag counter and such.

Firstly can I thank all my regular readership whoever you are for your continued patronage. With flag counter I can tell how many hits I get and of course the countries across the world I get them. I’m delighted at both the hit rate in UK and the interest from abroad.
I suppose when readers log on it’s a bit like arriving in the car park of a restaurant if you see plenty of vehicles parked you think this must be an OK place to eat and hence the blog “this might be worth a read. The comments section from abroad though is none existent and I wonder why. It’s not my American family who are the USA interest for example I checked that out.
My clinic campaign attracts some local interest as does the local political items but there must be a lot more of the silent majority who read and leave. I’m following a lot more blogs than I used to. Methodist Preacher for example got very few comments until he did a piece on global warming which attracted 24 comments to date. http://methodistpreacher.blogspot.com/2009/07/global-warming-alternative-spirituality.html

I’m not heavy into the spiritual stuff or the totally biased political bloggers who seem to dominate the blogasphere in fact what is happening to me on a day by day basis and the issues here in Newton keep me focused.
We do however have a general election coming up and next year local elections to so I’m sure health permitting I’m going to get involved with these.
As a taster I think Sandwell MPs need to wake up to the threat of far right parties because I think one of them could loose their seat. We only have to look at what happened in Tipton, correlate that to fed up pensioners and unemployed in those wards and others and we have our first far right MP. What a disaster for Sandwell.

A quiet week end.

Not totally as I planned it but perhaps for the better. The disease/drugs did one of their catch up routines on Sunday and washed me out again. Fortunately we had pretty much completed what we wanted to do before hand and a lazy day was a bit of a bonus for me. I did a little political lobbying with our local councillors and MP via email just to get a better understanding of their views on the position with our PCT and clinic. I’ll report on the outcome in due course. I’m convinced the only reason we are making any progress with our clinic campaign is because of the cross party support for this, the adverse publicity the PCT are getting and the now clearly demonstrated public frustration at the position here in Newton. I’m sceptical I suppose because I have been in a similar position with PCT a couple of years ago when a doctor closed his surgery in our ward. Together with a friend from the Great Barr & Newton forum I went along to meet with them and we were promised a replacement doctor. An offer which was later withdrawn/denied. A lot more witnesses this time but a lot more “get out” references also.

Clinic campaign update

It’s good news, I think! It’s a sad reflection on what as gone on between us and the PCT that I have to be cautious about what I have heard. Today the Chair, Chief Exec and an officer came along to our local community forum to update us on plans for our long overdue clinic. It appears that they now favour using our first choice site of Tanhouse Community Centre for either the main clinic or its satellite facility. This would be a joint venture with Sandwell Council. They were anxious to stress that a lot of work needed to be done before they could make any promises. Funding for the facility might not be straight forward because basically this would be the first time a joint venture of this nature has been undertaken. The Chief Exec explained he was aware of the frustrations from within our community at the lack of progress on this and stressed that Great Barr was a priority for them. A lot of people from the floor underlined this frustration both from councillors and public. During a discussion on local doctors attitudes to a clinic Cllr Hosell made what I thought was the most positive observation of the day and that is that it is the patients that come first. If exiting doctors don’t want to work with the new arrangements (and there is no evidence to suggest that this is the case) then we should recruit doctors who do. One of the most positive sides to this is that it will be Sandwell PCT commissioned. News that a HOB clinic planned for neighbouring Handsworth had been put on hold was also good news for us.
From my point of view there were two issues that were not addressed: - no time scale was laid down and no recovery plan tabled. Without these two items being established the group must not sit back and think things are going well. Today we won a battle we have not yet won the war. There is still much to do. We do however now need to consider a change in tactics. I would like to think the confrontational aspects are over and we need to develop a cautious partnership approach to this but just in case be ready. The PCT are promising full consultation as the project moves on and we must ensure that the groups voice is heard during this consultation period. The next forum meeting date of 15th September is to long before we need to talk again.
More I’m sure to follow, but this just might be a win win situation for all concerned.

The clinic campaign a bit more.

Our local community forum meeting is next Thursday and although I believe in being open about these things to say too much now would be naïve and give the opposition a big advantage. We must therefore at this stage hear what the PCT have to say but have our next campaign stage ready to implement. Planning for this is going well but I do hope we do not have to implement it.
It is quite common these days to hear of people with life threatening illnesses having to fight their PCT over the provision of a life extending drug but rare to hear of a community having to fight theirs for the provision of basic health services.

I went for a lie down

I should keep my big mouth shut (yesss! I can hear half of Sandwell Council cheer from the rooftops) about feeling well. The following day after my swim attempt disease/drugs caught up with me and just about wiped out my day. Everything I attempted ended with me asleep in a chair or in bed. I even fell asleep watching the Williams sisters.
Happy to be able to report today I’m back to normal if I know what that status is nowadays.

I’ll go for a swim.

Woke up one morning feeling fine. This is unusual for me. I pinched myself a couple of times just to make sure I wasn’t dead. No I was alive and totally pain free. I lay in bed for a few minutes to savour the moment then down stairs for a cuppa.
My oncologist has been suggesting I should take more exercise so I decide a morning swim is possible today. I haven’t swum since before my diagnosis because to be honest although I was an extremely good swimmer and a qualified advanced teacher I never felt confident enough to get back in the pool. I persuaded my wife to come along to act as my minder and off we set to Wednesbury baths where I know they have a disabled group.
When we arrive we are flagged down by three pretty young ladies who advise us they have a power cut at the pool and the pool is closed.
One of the most contentious issues in West Brom is that although we are the biggest town in Sandwell we do not have a swimming pool and from what I can see are never likely to get one. We considered our options all of which required a lengthy drive. We gave up on the swim.
Free swimming in West Brom under the government’s new rules would appear to be bit of a farce for us senior Sandwellians. Birmingham has a pool which is not to far from me which I’ll try next time I have the urge but surely Sandwell have a duty to provide these facilities.

I’m a ferret II

This is starting to pong a little
I got an answer to my letter re my post of Wednesday 17th June: - “I’m like a ferret”: - Local news. Concerning my concerns about posters and the procedure for displaying them at community centres. The letter makes interesting reading. The reason for the delay is stated as “the council had recently issued instruction on certain political parties” No political party was mentioned on our poster. If you take the letter on face value centre managers or indeed their managers can’t take any decisions for themselves. The head of service had to rule on this one. There is no explanation why the thing was stuck on someone’s desk for four days. The whole thing smacks of cover up to me. I went along to the community centre today to check on the “facts” and got a completely different story.
I think we lost this little spat but we have a piece of intelligence we did not have before and that is again if you take this letter on face value there is an element on the management committee who do not want a clinic at this centre. I am though not going to let this rest. Something is very wrong here and it needs sorting. As far as I’m concerned the management committee and local management should be working for the best interests of the centre and community at large. Preventing our poster being seen did neither.