BRITS PUT THE WRONG GUY ON TRIAL

They should be prosecuting the filthy hospital that gave the kid MRSA. It was the MRSA that turned a minor problem into a major one

A headmaster accused of breaching safety standards after the death of a three-year-old boy who fell from a flight of steps while pretending to be Batman insisted yesterday that the child had been told the area was out of bounds.

James Porter, 66, was giving evidence before a jury at Mold Crown Court. He is accused of breaking health and safety laws by allowing infants unsupervised access to the steps in a remote part of the playground. Kian Williams, a pupil at the private Hillgrove School, in Bangor, is said to have been playing as Batman when he leapt from the fourth step and fell headlong. The child did not need treatment for a break in the skin or a fracture but later suffered secondary swelling of the brain and died from pneumonia brought on by a MRSA-type infection, on August 11, 2004. Mr Porter denies charges that he took inadequate measures to protect young pupils from the 13 steps leading from one playground to another. He faces an unlimited fine if found guilty. The trial continues.

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Remember those Cuban doctors Fidel sent to Venezuela?

Growing numbers of Cuban doctors sent overseas to work are defecting to the USA. Post below lifted from Fausta. See the original for links

A large number of the defectors have fled from Venezuela, which has received some 14 000 Cuban medical professionals, more than the rest of the world combined. Currently, dozens have sought refuge in neighbouring Colombia, often living in precarious conditions, while they await permission to enter the USA.

Andres paid a price to get to Colombia. He and his wife had been assigned to the city of Punto Fijo on the northwestern coast of Venezuela, not far from the border. Their escape went smoothly until they reached the frontier, where Venezuelan guards refused to permit them to cross because the visas on their passports were valid only for travel within Venezuela. Only after Andres bribed the agents with nearly all their possessions did the guards let them leave Venezuela. "We gave them all the money we had, cellular phones, watches, and they let us cross", he said. "e were in Colombia and we had reached freedom. We felt free".

Andres and his wife were fortunate because not all defecting Cubans get across the border but are, instead, arrested and shipped back home. Once across the border, however, Andres and his wife found themselves stranded in north east Colombia's harsh Guajira desert without contacts or money to continue travel. Eventually, however, they were given a lift by truckers, who carried them to the capital, Bogota.

In Bogota, Andres has lived with two other defectors in an unused storage room provided by a church group. They have also received assistance from the UN High Commission for Refugees. But, as they wait for their US visas, many of the Cubans are fearful because of their uncertain legal status in Colombia, whose government has given few of them refugee status.

Several Cuban defectors interviewed in Bogota said that they fled not only because of oppression in their own nation, but also because of unreasonably poor and demanding work conditions in Venezuela. Andres said that he could not stand the conditions in Venezuela, where he lived in a crowded house with a leaky straw roof which he shared with fifteen other Cuban doctors waiting to be put to work.

The doctors also said that in Venezuela, Cuban minders monitored their movements, prohibiting non-work contact with Venezuelans. When not at work, the Cubans were required to be at home after 6 pm. One couple said that after they pointed out some problems with the programme, officials threatened to send them back to Cuba in retaliation.

The Cubans said that the programme they worked in, called "Inside the Barrio", was also plagued with mismanagement and inefficiency. Although many clinics were severely understaffed, newly-arrived medics sometimes sat for months waiting for assignment to a post, they said, and often conditions in the clinics were rudimentary lacking even basic medicines.

You should also bear in mind that Cuba's suffering shortages of healthcare workers because one-fifth of Cuba's health care labor supply - some 14,000 doctors and 6,000 health workers - has been contracted out to work in Venezuela. In return for these medical services, Cuba receives 90,000 barrels of discounted oil per day.

Chew on that the next time you read/hear about the charismatic-leader-helping-the-poor-offering-free-health-care-education-adult-literacy -and-job-training-initiatives-that-help-millions-of-Venezuelans/Cubans/Bolivians, and every time you hear about the excellent Cuban healthcare and other myths. Too bad the folks who have been playing SICKO at the downtown movie theater for the past 5 weeks, and the folks who watch the movie don't care much about reality.

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL hospitals and health insurance schemes should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the very poor and minimal regulation. Both Australia and Sweden have large private sector health systems with government reimbursement for privately-provided services so can a purely private system with some level of government reimbursement or insurance for the poor be so hard to do?

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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