Category — Society

Birth of the National Health Service

I can’t think why I’ve only just realized that I was born before the National Health Service came into being. Now, that may not strike non-UK readers as important, but those of us who’ve lived with and been treated by the NHS most or all of our lives are very happy that this extraordinary social institution is still with us after 60 years.

I was born in December 1947. My parents would have had to pay the hospital where I was born for its services. Now our medical treatment is free at the point of use.

The NHS was conceived in the middle of the Second World War, when Britain was almost on its economic knees. Before this visionary new service was born - on 5 July 1948, at a time of extraordinary privation for the British people - people who could afford it (including my parents) paid for medical treatment, and those who couldn’t afford it went without.

Women queuing for food in the severe winter of 1947

Despite all the NHS’s faults and weaknesses, I am grateful for the vision of William Beveridge and the determination Aneurin Bevan, health minister in the 1945 Labour government to ensure that…

…everybody, irrespective of means, age, sex or occupation shall have equal opportunity to benefit from the best and most up-to-date medical and allied services available.

Of course, the NHS has never fully lived up to this promise, but as a retired GP who qualified as a doctor on the day the NHS began has commented:

Nobody realised how much unknown sickness there was until the NHS began. So many people just could not afford to go to the doctor. The new service uncovered a huge cavern of unmet need. There was an unprecedented rush to the GPs with problems people had been putting off for years. Before the NHS, healthcare in this country was a disaster, particularly if you were poor.

If you want to read the history of this great social invention, you can download Sixty Years of the National Health Service from the Department of Health website.

Celebration in Westminster Abbey

So around 2,000 of us - doctors, nurses, chaplains, patients, administrators, and many more - came to Westminster Abbey yesterday afternoon - to celebrate the NHS’s 60th birthday.

Prince Charles was there. The Prime Minister was there. And I was there, oh yes, I was there representing the UK Bahá’í community (I am one of two Bahá’í members of the Multi Faith Group for Healthcare Chaplaincy), and sitting next to Sikh, Muslim and Jewish friends.

Westminster Abbey has a grand way with these ceremonial occasions - processions, robes, choir, music, solemn language - and yesterday’s service was no exception.

(I was part of the small “other faiths” procession. It’s an awe-inspiring experience to follow a verger at the stately processional pace favoured by the Church of England through the Nave and into the Quire of this place where God has been worshipped by Christians for over a thousand years - although this particular building was begun in 1245 - watched by the congregation, who surely must have wondered at this motley group of besuited and unrobed men, one in a turban and one with a Jewish kippah.)

Reasons to be thankful

In his address the Rt Revd Michael Perham, Bishop of Gloucester and Chairman of the Hospital Chaplaincies Council, highlighted four reasons to be thankful on this occasion:

The first is that the National Health Service happened at all. It was a brave and visionary social revolution emerging, surprisingly, out of a world of post-war austerity. It was opposed by most of the professionals who would have to work within it. Its background was economic hardship and entrenched opposition. Yet it came into being, promoted by courageous politicians, and it was not very long before it was the pride and joy of the nation and the envy of the world. Give thanks!

The second is that it has continued to evolve, responding to radical change - not so much radical change imposed by politicians and administrators (though, of course, there has been that), but radical change brought about by medical advance and by new insights within the medical profession…

The third reason to rejoice is the huge satisfaction and pride that the people of this country still have in the Health Service. Politicians, challenging one another, rightly always want to get it better. Newspapers sometimes run horror stories of things that go wrong. Some people have a raw deal. This week’s BBC poll on the NHS found that 82% of people were still proud of the NHS and half of those still saw it as the envy of the world. I’d give a lot for a vote of confidence like that. Give thanks!

The fourth reason to celebrate? Simply this - and it’s hugely important. The Health Service work-force deserves honour and praise. Health care “professional” - I use the word in its widest meaning, doctors of many kinds, nurses of many kinds, administrators of many kinds, support workers of many kinds, chaplains of many faiths - continue to be people of dedication, continue to exercise care and compassion towards their patients. “Honour physicians for their services . . the skill of physicians makes them distinguished,” says the writer of Ecclesiasticus, and we need to widen that honouring of those who care for the sick and work for health to include the entire profession. For the people of the NHS, give thanks!

However,

That profound sense of thankfulness needs to be set against the inevitable difficulties that have been encountered as the NHS has tried to respond to change over the years. Nor will the difficulties vanish away, however much we try to anticipate change.

What of the future?

Bishop Michael’s conclusion contains wise words:

There is much that a future NHS will need that is beyond the knowledge of a bishop! There is probably much that is beyond the imagination of most of us. Our forebears in 1948, for all their vision, cannot have pictured the advances and the changes that we have seen. But I think I do know that, if the National Health Service is to continue to serve, it will need to hold on to two timeless truths.

• The human person is a wonderful combination of the physical, the mental, the social and the spiritual, a divine design beyond compare.

• To heal the sick and to make people healthy is a vocation, a collaboration with the God from whom all health and wholeness comes.

Reception

So, the service finished and we all ceremoniously recessed to the Great West Door. Outside in the Sanctuary, the Abbey bells rang through the light, persistent, rain. The congregation hoisted their umbrellas and trooped across the road into the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre for sandwiches, scones, tea, a speech by Alan Johnson, the Secretary of State for Health.

And for a song by soprano Lesley Garrett, who is married to a GP.

When he launched the NHS, Nye Bevan said:

We shall never have all we need. Expectations will always exceed capacity… The NHS must always be changing, growing and improving. It must always appear inadequate.

No wonder Lesley Garrett sang “To Dream the Impossible Dream”!

Technorati Tags: NHS, National Health Service, Westminster Abbey, 60th anniversary, Christian, Baha’i, Sikh, Muslim, chaplaincy

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

I like this. According to this story on the BBC website religious leaders on official visits in the north London borough of Barnet will be able to park for nothing using special permits.

Applicants of all faiths including Baha’i, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism and Rastafarianism can make use of the scheme.

Barnet Council leader Mike Freer said:

The importance of religion to many Barnet residents cannot be underestimated and the council has acknowledged this with a policy that will assist spiritual leaders when engaging with people in times of illness or crisis.

So members of the Bahá’í Local Spiritual Assembly in Barnet couldn’t use the permits to pop into the corner shop to buy a newspaper. Aw, shucks!

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, London, Barnet, parking permit, religious leaders

I was intrigued by this story on the BBC today.

Apparently elderly people are particularly vulnerable to dehydration. It can cause dizziness - leading to potentially serious falls - constipation and confusion.

The manager of one care home in Suffolk decided to do something about this.

Staff at The Martins care home in Bury St Edmunds started a “water club” for their residents last summer.

Residents were encouraged to drink eight to 10 glasses of water a day, water coolers were installed, and they were each given a jug for their room.

This has dramatically improved the health of the home’s elderly residents.

Jean says she feels 20 years younger.

“I feel more alert - more cheerful too. I’m not a miserable person, but it’s added a sort of zest.”

There are fewer falls in the care home, fewer GP call-outs, fewer laxatives are used, fewer urinary infections occur, the residents sleep better, and those with dementia are less agitated.

Wendy Tomlinson, the home’s manager, says:

It’s been fantastic. The whole home buzzes now; there isn’t that period after lunch when everyone goes off to sleep.

Elder abuse a serious concern

As I get older, I get more and more concerned about elder abuse. This is, I suppose, selfish of me. But when I think back to my mother’s final years of life - she was in a particularly good care home near Oxford - I can see how easy it is for frail elderly people to be badly treated by impatient or poorly trained care staff or to become the victims of abuse by neglect.

When we are younger, our bodies adjust more easily to insufficient water intake, so care home staff and management may not realize (as a result of their own experience) that older people need to drink more.

So care homes may, without knowing it, be causing their residents to suffer unnecessarily.

Worse than that, I can imagine, for example, that there may be badly run homes where residents with dementia who wear incontinence pads are deprived of water so that staff do not have to change the pads or urine-soaked underwear so frequently. Such treatment may well constitute a human rights abuse

Tougher regulations for care homes?

Cross-bench peer Baroness Greengross has been convinced for some time that many old people are not drinking enough water. She would like to see tougher regulations for care homes so that staff are required to ensure that residents drink enough.

I hope that by the time I need to be consigned to a care home such kinds of elder abuse are as unacceptable as the abuse of children.

Technorati Tags: elder abuse, care homes, water, dehydration, dementia

The Bahá’í community’s international governing council, the Universal House of Justice, has just written another wonderful letter to the Bahá’ís in Iran. The letter is both compassionate and challenging.

Equality of women and men

It calls on the beleaguered Bahá’ís in the land where the Bahá’í Faith originated in the 19th century to help “remove the barriers hindering the progress of women in society” in Iran.

For you, the equality of men and women is not a Western construct but a universal spiritual truth about an aspect of the nature of human beings, promulgated by Bahá’u’lláh nearly one hundred and fifty years ago in His homeland, Iran. It is, above all, a requirement of justice. This principle is consonant with the highest rectitude of conduct, its application strengthens family life, and it is essential to the regeneration and progress of any nation, the peace of the world, and the advancement of civilization.

The House of Justice reminds the Iranian Bahá’ís of their considerable achievements in emancipating women and calls on them to do more to “transcend those cultural practices that impede the progress of women”.

The goal of true equality is not easily attained; the transformation required is difficult for men and women alike. To this end, we warmly encourage you to continue to enhance your understanding of this principle and to strive to uphold it more fully in your families and in your community.

The letter closes by encouraging the Bahá’ís to work with their country-people who aspire to the same universal ideal of equality.

Responding to persecution

This is not the first letter written in recent months by the Universal House of Justice to the Bahá’ís in Iran. The letters remind the Iranian Bahá’ís of their great heritage as a faith community and as being in the forefront of social and economic development in Iran. And they call on the Bahá’ís to rise above the appalling persecution they are suffering and to put their energy and love into doing good for their fellow Iranians - and to work with their compatriots of any faith (or none) in doing so.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Universal House of Justice, Iran, persecution, gender equality, advancement of women, social and economic development

One of the most exciting moments during the recent International Bahá’í Convention was the reading of the Ridván message that the Universal House of Justice addresses every year to the Bahá’ís of the World. This year’s message is a particularly clear explanation of what the Bahá’í community all round the world is doing to respond to the deepest spiritual and moral needs of the world’s peoples.

This message is both inspiring and chastening. Inspiring because it describes exactly what Bahá’ís in every continent are doing - this was born out by the experiences shared by delegates during the consultation periods - and shows how much more we can do. Chastening because it warns us that the capacity that the Bahá’í community is building now will be tested to the very limits by a world in disarray.

And then the Universal House of Justice reminds us, in the penultimate paragraph, of the vital need for individual and institutional rectitude of conduct.

Only if you demonstrate the rectitude of conduct to which the writings of the Faith call every soul will you be able to struggle against the myriad forms of corruption, overt and subtle, eating at the vitals of society. Only if you perceive honour and nobility in every human being–this independent of wealth or poverty–will you be able to champion the cause of justice. And to the extent that administrative processes of your institutions are governed by the principles of Baha’i consultation will the great masses of humanity be able to take refuge in the Baha’i community.

So, here it is. It is well worth reading this majestic and insightful message very carefully. I make no apologies for the length of this post.

Ridvan 2008

To the Baha’is of the World

Dearly loved Friends,

Thousands upon thousands, embracing the diversity of the entire human family, are engaged in systematic study of the Creative Word in an environment that is at once serious and uplifting. As they strive to apply through a process of action, reflection and consultation the insights thus gained, they see their capacity to serve the Cause rise to new levels. Responding to the inmost longing of every heart to commune with its Maker, they carry out acts of collective worship in diverse settings, uniting with others in prayer, awakening spiritual susceptibilities, and shaping a pattern of life distinguished for its devotional character. As they call on one another in their homes and pay visits to families, friends and acquaintances, they enter into purposeful discussion on themes of spiritual import, deepen their knowledge of the Faith, share Baha’u'llah’s message, and welcome increasing numbers to join them in a mighty spiritual enterprise. Aware of the aspirations of the children of the world and their need for spiritual education, they extend their efforts widely to involve ever-growing contingents of participants in classes that become centres of attraction for the young and strengthen the roots of the Faith in society. They assist junior youth to navigate through a crucial stage of their lives and to become empowered to direct their energies toward the advancement of civilization. And with the advantage of a greater abundance of human resources, an increasing number of them are able to express their faith through a rising tide of endeavours that address the needs of humanity in both their spiritual and material dimensions. Such is the panorama before us as we pause this Ridvan to observe the progress of the worldwide Baha’i community.

On several occasions we have indicated that the aim of the series of global Plans that will carry the Baha’i world to the celebration of the centenary of the Faith’s Formative Age in 2021 will be achieved through marked progress in the activity and development of the individual believer, of the

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British young people seem intent on drinking themselves and British society in a complete stupor. Our government believed that it could change the traditional British drinking culture of knocking back the booze until you fall over into a continental-style café culture of allegedly civilized drinking by allowing pubs and clubs to obtain licences to sell alcohol 24 hours a day.

This would, the story went, help regenerate run-down city centres into civilized piazzas with restaurants and bars and cafes frequented by well-heeled patrons eating and drinking moderately and enjoying their evenings out.

But the drinks industry, a monstrous beast whose main aim is to sky-rocket its profits, which it can do by selling vast quantities of cheap beer, wine, alcopops and spirits to 18-24 year olds, helped subvert the government’s café-culture dream world and turned it into a booze-filled nightmare of over-consumption and violence.

Of course, the drinks industry was swimming with a fast-flowing tide. A generation which was raised with a belief in its unlimited entitlement to whatever it wanted whenever it wanted it and which is the inheritor of a very long British history of binge-drinking (stand up and pour it down your neck until you fall over) was unlikely to resist the blandishments of the “happy hour” and cheap hooch. It was definitely not going to learn to sit for hours with its little finger crooked over a small white wine when it could blast its brains out 24-hours a day with high-alcohol-content drinks that tasted like lemonade.

in denial

Whose fault is this? The government’s? Well, I am sure that anyone with any brains left over after a stimulating night out could have told them the likely outcome of their strange fantasy about Britain becoming like an ad man’s version of France. According to Reuters, the government is in denial:

Despite violent crime between the hours of 3 and 6 a.m. rising by more than a quarter, the government will say the total amount of alcohol-related offences has fallen by three percent, the Daily Mail reported.

But Sir Simon Milton, the chairman of the Local Government Association (LGA) and leader of Westminster council, has labelled the new laws a “mistake”.

Is the fault of the drinks industry - manufacturers, pubs, clubs and retailers? Who’s going to turn down the opportunity of lots of lovely moolah when the government gives you such a legislative present?

What about local authorities? Shouldn’t they have exerted more control? Or the drinkers? Shouldn’t they have exercised more self-discipline?

There are plenty of people to blame for turning our city centres into weekend battlegrounds. And, what do you know? Everyone is passing the blame onto everyone else.

Anyway, we can be happy in the knowledge that 24-hour drinking will continue. The government has no intention of changing those laws. Instead, it will punish retailers who sell to underage drinkers and put out adverts warning of the dangers of excessive drinking. So that’s all right then.

But a combination of a “two strikes and you’re out” policy for retailers and public health messages for the drinkers really seems to miss the hard core of the problem. Yes, retailers should make sure they keep within the law, and, yes, public health messages make us all feel better – even if they don’t change our behaviour. But the root of this particular complex of problems lies in a moral crisis and a cultural narrative that says that getting ratted = having fun.

a fundamental moral crisis

According to Udo Schaeffer (in Baha’i Ethics in Light of Scripture: An Introduction)

We are facing a fundamental crisis of morals with far-reaching impact on the stability of the body politic. (p. 101)

What is the cause of this process and where it is leading us? In my view, the crisis of morality is a consequence of the crisis of religion. (p. 103)

The crisis of the Christian faith is closely connected with the the crisis of morality. Norms and moral values are of an axiomatic nature and cannot be proved exclusively by reason. They are linked to convictions, to faith. One must believe in them. Religion has been able to create a system of transcendent values and ideals, to sustain a hierarchy of values, declaring some of them to be absolute and universal, others to be relative and particular. (p. 105)

In the absence of a strong religious foundation for ethics and people’s ethical commitment, we try to rely on reason to derive our ethical principles. But the rational justification of morals fails precisely because there is no guarantee that everyone will be convinced by any given reason for a particular norm, no matter how cogent; there is no longer any “public, shared rationale or justification” for morality, as Alistair MacIntyre states in After Virtue

This means that there are no unconditional duties and no universally binding norms. Each one of us becomes the judge of our own morality and the arbiter of social order.

When these notions are detached from human self-responsibility and from the commitment to the common weal, they become nothing more than expressions of egoism and selfishness. (Schaeffer, Baha’i Ethics, p. 107)

Zygmunt Bauman points up the conclusion of this relativisation of value:

In the plural and pluralistic world of post-modernity, every form of life is permitted in principle, or, rather, no agreed principles are evident which may render any form of life impermissible. (”Strangers: The Social Construction of Universality and Particularity.” Telos, no. 78, pp. 7-42.)

Says Schaeffer:

Society cannot survive once its members have lost the ability to share and sacrifice, once everyone emphasizes only his own rights and strives to serve only his own interests, once the highest aim in life is “fun”, once society is governed by hedonism and egoism…. The cultural crisis of the West … has developed into a global crisis of human civilization, one which gravely endangers the survival of mankind. (p. 108)

This is what Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Baha’i Faith wrote in in 1936 in one of his extraordinarily far-sighted World Order letters:

No wonder, therefore, that when, as a result of human perversity, the light of religion is quenched in men’s hearts, and the divinely appointed Robe, designed to adorn the human temple, is deliberately discarded, a deplorable decline in the fortunes of humanity immediately sets in, bringing in its wake all the evils which a wayward soul is capable of revealing. The perversion of human nature, the degradation of human conduct, the corruption and dissolution of human institutions, reveal themselves, under such circumstances, in their worst and most revolting aspects. Human character is debased, confidence is shaken, the nerves of discipline are relaxed, the voice of human conscience is stilled, the sense of decency and shame is obscured, conceptions of duty, of solidarity, of reciprocity and loyalty are distorted, and the very feeling of peacefulness, of joy and of hope is gradually extinguished. (Shoghi Effendi, World Order of Baha’u'llah, p .187)

Future perfecting

This would be a downbeat note on which to end this post. However, I believe that a new, religiously and spiritually founded morality is possible. Well, more than possible, it actually exists in the sacred Writings of Baha’u'llah, embodied (in embryonic form) in the life of the Baha’i community. As Baha’u'llah writes:

The purpose of the one true God in manifesting Himself is to summon all mankind to truthfulness and sincerity, to piety and trustworthiness, to resignation and submissiveness to the Will of God, to forbearance and kindliness, to uprightness and wisdom. His object is to array every man with the mantle of a saintly character, and to adorn him with the ornament of holy and goodly deeds. (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u'llah, p. 299)

The alcoholic crisis of our city centres will never be solved by partial fixes to the licensing laws, nor, indeed, by a return to the status quo ante. No amount of policing is going to stop what is in fact a symptom of a deep spiritual and moral crisis. Nothing short of a renewal of a genuine and well-founded faith-based moral orientation is going to do the trick.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, alcohol, 24-hour drinking, licensing laws, morals, ethics, spirituality, Christianity

Tobbot (aka Tobstv) has posed a problem in the form of an intriguing parable.

It’s well worth reading, pondering and adding your comments. The parable has implications for all of us.

Technorati Tags: moral challenge, parable, neighbours