Sorry, but I need to vent!!!!

I experienced the WORST customer service today at a shop in Malvern, I don’t want to mention the name of the shop because I’m not sure how I’m going to proceed. 

Last night I bought something from this shop. I paid cash for it. I took it home and found out it didn’t work. So today, less than 24 hours later I took it back to the shop and asked if I could get a refund. The girl in the shop told me “NO” even though I still had the receipt. I asked if I could get a replacement instead then. Again this person told me “NO.” I asked to talk to a manager now, as I’m really not happy, and I explained that I had just bought the item, had got it home and it didn’t work. The manager just smiled and told me to my face that I was “OUT OF LUCK.”
No refund.
No FREE replacement.. 
I’ll tell you what…I am NEVER buying another Lotto Ticket from that shop again…

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution has rejected accusations it is operating a “migrant taxi service” by rescuing people at risk of dying in the water as they cross the Channel in small boats.

The volunteer lifeboat charity said it was “very proud” of its humanitarian work and vowed that it would continue to respond to coastguard callouts. Some volunteers have faced abuse, including having beer cans thrown at them and people shouting “f*** off back to France”.

My comment: I believe that Epicurus would have been a staunch advocate of taking in the refugees who have travelled thousands of dangerous miles to reach a safe place where there are no (or very few, anyway) religious zealots wanting to kill anyone who is not an upholder of pre-historic, reactionary social and religious teachings.

By the way, what will the British protestors do when they see Afghans, who have helped Britain and America in that benighted country, seeking shelter and jobs in Britain? Somewhere in history each and every one of us has someone in the family’s past who fled to England (my own family included) from some upheaved and dangerous situation.

Yesterday, I posted a comment in praise of the British National Health service. Polls show that British people overwhelmingly oppose the privatisation of the National Health Service, which has been surreptitiously proceeding under the right-wing Tory government. In 2017 a YouGov survey found that 84% were against it, and I suspect that that opinion hasn’t changed an iota. Suspicion remains that gradual privatisation is a front for an attempt to “dismantle the NHS”.

On the other hand, the private sector is now embedded in an NHS which can ill afford to sacrifice any of its capacity. And as The King’s Fund think tank puts it: “Provided patients receive care that is timely and free at the point of use, our view is that the provider of a service is less important than the quality and efficiency of the care they deliver.”

My comment: Yes, but while good doctors should be amply rewarded, everything depends on attitude and ability of the staff, their calling and dedication. It is very unlikely, for instance, that there could be doctors more attentive and caring in the private sector than there are at my local NHS surgery. The commitment there to patients of all origins and ages is wonderful. I fear that the lust for money, that is a hallmark of private medicine, is not going to result in a healthier nation.

P.S. When you get old you begin to learn a lot about the medical world!

Britain’s medicine prices are among the lowest in the world, thanks to the NHS’s buying powe and the tough value-for-money tests imposed by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. This is a major bone of contention. US prices are 2.5 times higher than ours, and Donald Trump thinks that Americans are “subsidising” low prices abroad, which is “unfair” and “ridiculous”. The US pharmaceutical industry wants to charge the NHS more, not just because the UK is a big market: NHS prices are used as benchmarks for 14 other nations.

Dr Andrew Hill of Liverpool University calculates that, in the worst-case scenario, the NHS drugs bill would rise from £13bn to £45bn – a massive extra expense. The Tory manifesto promises that neither the NHS nor drug prices will be “on the table”, but leaked documents noting preliminary talks show that the subject is certainly on the agenda: “competitive pricing” and extending patents for American drugs were both mentioned. US negotiators have driven hard bargains on drugs in recent deals with South Korea, Canada and Mexico. Britain would be a weaker partner in any deal and might find it hard to resist some concessions. (The Week, 14 December 2019)

My comment: The US pharmaceutical industry has done an amazing job of denigrating so-called “socialized medicine” and making Americans frightened of it.
I myself am very familiar (too familiar!) with both systems, and I can honestly say that I have had sometimes marginal service from private medicine (pushing unnecessary extra procedures to make more money), whereas the National Health Service has been caring and terrific, even if you have to wait to be seen by some specialists. Don’t believe for a moment the misinformation about “socialized medicine” – it’s self-interested propaganda from people with an eye, not on the health of patients, but on the bottom line.