remedy for me, please.....

As winter approaches, the focus of our damn fool idealistic socialist disaster area of a health service (© US Republicans) turns toward flu inoculations. Hundreds of people die each winter from influenza in this country, and so the NHS makes the vaccine available, free of charge, to certain parts of the population. It’s mostly damage limitation, I suppose, as the health service would have to pick up the pieces of a nasty epidemic anyway, but still...it’s not something to be sniffed (or sneezed or coughed) at. Mostly, this offer applies to people over the age of 65, but as someone who suffers from a chronic neurological condition, I am also advised to toddle along each year for my inoculation. Apparently a dose of the flu might stoke up my immune system and trigger an attack on my nervous system. Well, as I definitely don’t want that, and as the flu is quite unpleasant anyway, I’m quite happy to have the jab. Last year it was actually two jabs, one for seasonal flu and one for H1N1. This year, I’m pleased to say, they’ve managed to incorporate the two vaccines together into one, so it’s just the one sore arm instead of two.

My doctor’s surgery was running a Flu clinic on Saturday morning, so I made an appointment and headed on over there first thing. I actually got there before the doors opened, and was a little surprised to see that there was already quite a queue forming outside. Rather than join the huddle outside the doors, I stayed sat inside my car listening to the radio. When the doors opened, I joined the back of the queue and went inside. After I had checked in with reception, I had a closer look around me: I was the youngest person there.... by at least thirty years. Not only that, but everyone in the waiting room appeared to be looking at me with barely concealed hostility.

Why’s HE here?

He’s YOUNG. What right does HE have to a vaccination?

How SELFISH.

It was as if there are only a limited number of vaccines, and that by having one of them for myself, an old person would have to go without... and that could only mean certain death. These old people knew that, for me to live, one of them was going to die this winter and THEY DIDN’T LIKE IT.

Luckily, my name was called early and I hurried into the relative safety of the nurse’s office before I could be lynched. I made it out alive, but only because the mobility of the over 65s isn’t all that good..... I think if I’d walked slower, then they might have got me.