24 December - Not a Happy Christmas
It has not been a good week. Within hours of the trip to Swanley a dose of
flu came up out of nowhere and left me shivering, shaking and sweating in bed so
weak from coughing and sneezing that there were times when I was unable to get
to the kitchen tap to assuage the thirst. This morning is the first time my body
feels as though it wants to work even though my head gives the impression of
detachment and being somewhere else.
Then on Thursday morning Newham Hospital rang to give five hours notice of their
intention to discharge my 97 year old aunt back into her own house to fend for
herself. All they can do for her condition now, caused by two and a half years
of neglect by her named GP (Goodyear, Wordsworth Surgery, Newham) who has never
seen her, not even once, is to give her the correct pills and hope they reverse
some of the brain damage. Taking pills does not warrant a long hospital stay so she is
condemned to sit at home alone a danger to herself and her neighbours.
Having won a 24 hour stay of execution I managed to organise a chaperoned taxi
ride to Hampshire where the old lady is now with my sister while we hope her mental
condition will improve.
There has been much thinking about the actions of Councillor Fothergill who is
campaigning for the news of her lost libel action to be taken off line. She
emailed and phoned to that effect several times,
her solicitor must have told
her there was nothing he could do, so in desperation she went to the police.
Kent Police had previously arrested six people because of false allegations by
Councillor Fothergill, it must have seemed worth another shot.
Would the police have entertained such a complaint if the news source was an
established newspaper?
The first hard evidence of her expensive mistake
did not reach this website
until 16th November and three days later further news came with the headline ‘Drawing a
line’. I considered the story told and it was time to move on.
If a Councillor is able to convince the police that reporting news without so
much as giving an opinion is criminal harassment then it seems to me that
there is no hope left for democracy and we all may as well give up.
Thank you to the one reader who emailed to voice his disgust with the situation
but it will take a lot more than that to persuade me to take Bonkers into the New Year.
But maybe it’s just the flu bug still talking…