“Your medical needs offend the Earth. Go away!”

**Posted by Phineas

An elderly grandmother in the UK has been told by her NHS (1) clinic to find another doctor, because the “carbon footprint” of her two-mile round-trip is too big:

Avril Mulcahy, 83, was told to address the “green travelling issues” over her journeys from her home in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, to the West Road Surgery. The surgery wrote to Mrs Mulcahy, telling her to register with a new GP within 28 days.

The letter said: “Our greatest concern is for your health and convenience but also taking into consideration green travelling issues. Re: Carbon footprints and winter weather conditions, we feel it would be advisable for patients to register at surgeries nearer to where they live.

“We would be very grateful if you could make the necessary arrangements to re-register at another practice.”

Mrs Mulcahy, a grandmother, believes the decision was made because she complained about a doctor.

So, we either have the apotheosis of Green Statism, marrying government control of personal medical decisions to the dogma of the Cult of Gaea, or they came up with a truly lame way to get rid of a possibly troublesome patient.

Either way, this stinks.

For what it’s worth, my guess is that the latter is true: For whatever reason, legitimate or not, Mulcahy complained about a doctor. Rather than deal with the complaint in a professional manner, the surgery acted like petty tinpot gods and invented an excuse straight out of the Book of Gore to be rid of her.

But, whichever is true, Mulcahy’s case is an illustration of the dystopia created when we let bureaucracy turn us into dependent children. Mulcahy and other NHS patients don’t pay their doctors, the government does. Thus they are not really accountable to their patients, but to those higher in the bureaucracy. We, on the other hand, are faceless proles whose needs (2) are either to be sacrificed to religion ideology or who simply are sent away when we are too much of a bother.

And with the Left’s devotion here to both single-payer health care and “fighting climate change” (3), we surely have much the same to look forward to if ObamaCare isn’t defeated.

Footnotes:
(1) “National Health Service,” the UK’s state-run single-payer system, something beloved and admired by key Obama appointees.
(2) Having taken care of elderly parents, I know how important it is for them to see the doctor or doctors they like and trust. This isn’t just a matter of convenience, but a need for good care.
(3) Or whatever they want to call it this week.

(Crossposted at Public Secrets)

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