To be or not to be– that is the question

I have been asked to help a Major Drugs company lobby the Scottish Government to make a certain drug available on the NHS. More about this will be discussed later on this year, however I mention it now in qualification in my comment on this article in the Independant today.

The spin by recent politicians to put Cancer treatment at the top of their list may make a nice cheap soundbite but the reality is that, in an environment of cuts, cuts and more cuts, that its nothing but patronising bs.

There are people who do not have access to funding who will be denied the treatment that could be part of the recipe towards their survival. These are not lazy b*ggers who couldn't be bothered to work or whatever other cheap attack may be used to portray them,. These include people who give up their selfishness to care for elderly, handicapped or sick relations. People who have worked in low paid industry on the back of which fat cats in the City may have made a fortune on spread betting.

I do not want to be part of a society that sees a seperatist system based on financial privilege concerned in at least the treatment of health.

If the politicians are serious they should also be looking at the profit margins pursued by drug companies which pushes the prices soaringly high during the period of patent.

I'll certainly make politicians aware that I was lucky to get treatment that, along with the attitude discussed throughout this blog, took me towards cure. I'll tell them I'm still struggling with the toxicity of that drug but at least I'm alive with a quality of life to pursue. I'll tell them to stop taking the free lunches and gifts and start taking the subject seriously, rather than a flippant press attractive bit of spin.

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To be or not to be– that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep No more – and by a sleep to say we end The heartache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to – ‘tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. There's the respect That makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th’ oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of disprized love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country from whose bourn No traveler returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pitch and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.—Soft you now! The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remembered.

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