Scots
gave the world:#The hypodermic syringe
# Anaesthesia
# Morphine
# Antiseptics
# Insulin
# Penicillin
# Interferon
# The thermometer
# Ante-natal clinics
That's quite an impressive list don't you think? So it would follow that our health service would be world class, wouldn't it?
Not quite:... a baby boy born south of the Border can expect to live to 77. In Scotland, the life expectancy is 73. In Glasgow, it's 69.1 years. Let's put that into perspective. Scotland's largest city has lower life expectancy than Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, Bosnia & Herzegovina and North Korea. For a rich country such as Scotland, that's a remarkable achievement.
Fraser Nelson continues:
And it's a political achievement. Lives are long in areas of Scotland where people run their own lives: it's Scots living in government-run (and government-built) housing schemes where the life expectancy is, quite literally, closer to that of Baghdad than Bristol.
This is an outrageous state of affairs, and yet Glasgow continues to vote Labour, signing its own death warrant. I'm not as enamoured as Mr Nelson of the Blair "reforms" in England but even those crumbs are unacceptable to the Scottish ruling class.
2 comments:
Comments made on previous template:
veritas
Two Shooting Parrot quotes:
"Lower life expectancy says more about the society we live in than it does about the health care we receive."
"the comments about life expectancy in Cuba, don't mock -- they have an excellent health care and social welfare system that means life expectancy is higher than many parts of the UK".
Do I detect some inconsistency here?
28 November 2004, 13:46:42 GMT
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Shooting Parrots
Re: the comments about life expectancy in Cuba, don't mock -- they have an excellent health care and social welfare system that means life expectancy is higher than many parts of the UK.
28 November 2004, 12:23:10 GMT
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Dean Esmay
Interferon doesn't actually do anything, does it?
Anyway, the rest of the list is impressive.
Although still: wouldn't things like drinking and other lifestyle issues also play into this?
27 November 2004, 06:44:11 GMT
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Shooting Parrots
I'm afraid quality of health care and life expectancy are not inextricably linked.
Health care is there to make people better when they get ill. How those people become ill in the first place depends on a host of factors -- genetics, life-style, deprivation, bad luck etc.
Lower life expectancy says more about the society we live in than it does about the health care we receive.
26 November 2004, 16:42:36 GMT
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David Farrer
Triticale/Geoff
Click on the words "gave the world" for a fuller list.
26 November 2004, 08:25:00 GMT
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Geoff Matthews
And curling (the sport). And I'm sure that T.V. owes its development to a Scot as well.
26 November 2004, 06:18:37 GMT
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triticale
But along with all these medical breakthrus, they also gave the world golf.
26 November 2004, 01:40:59 GMT
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Stuart
Andrew
Yes, Athelstane is Northumbrian Anglo-Saxon. But you should not equate Anglo-Saxon with English.
The modern Scots language is derived from northern Anglo-Saxon. The northern part of the old Northumbrian kingdom (now comprising Lothian and Borders) was only incorporated into Scotland by Malcolm II in 1018, quite a long time after Kenneth MacAlpin united the Scots and the Picts in 843.
The battle was at Athelstaneford, then outwith Pictish/Scottish territory, but the army that invented the new flag was most certainly not Anglo-Saxon.
25 November 2004, 20:33:38 GMT
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Andrew Duffin
Stuart, the serious comment.
I don't believe all those figures either. I have a table of life expectancies (can't find the link just now) that shows Scotland to be not as good as Costa Rica or Cuba. Hello? Like, anyone believes their statistics? (Excuse the lapse into teen-speak).
But the general point about our crappy health outcomes is undeniable imho.
25 November 2004, 12:25:40 GMT
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Andrew Duffin
The Saltire may well have been born in 832AD but judging from the name of the place you reference it was probably an English invention. I mean - Athelstan - it doesn't exactly have a Celtic ring, does it?
25 November 2004, 12:16:20 GMT
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Stuart
In fact, if I had the time, I could name several important omissions: the pedal-cycle, Banque de France, US Navy, Russian Navy, the fax and the marine propeller immediately come to mind.
I understand that we even invented national flags. The Saltire was born in 832AD at Athelstaneford in East Lothian, and is thus the oldest state flag in the world still in use. The Danish flag appears to be the 2nd oldest (10th century).
There is quite a comprehensive list of our innovations at:
http://www.visitscotland.com/aboutscotland/history/scottishinventions
24 November 2004, 21:08:33 GMT
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Stuart
I note that Investment Trusts are missing from the list of our Fianacial Inventions at the SE site.
24 November 2004, 20:59:02 GMT
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Stuart
From where did the comparative statitics come? I refuse to believe the North Korea statistics: are they including all the folk prematurely murdered by the state, and killed by famine and disease. Would you trust statistics from that government?
Lebanon I could nearly believe (it used to be quite rich before the USA got involved); but recent/current warzones like Bosnia and Gaza? Come-on, do the stats take into account the concentration camps, daily state-sponsored murders and mass graves (often full of young men)?
24 November 2004, 15:55:39 GMT
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