Anne Marie WHO ??

by johnofgwent

I wonder whose image will persist in the public's eye longer ? The woman on the right, or the woman on the left. Now be honest with me, do you even know who the woman on the left IS ?

Her name is Ann Marie Rogers and today she got star billing on Radio 4's "Last Word" for last week she had a meeting with a tall skeletal chap with a distinctive style in ceremonial wear who carries a large agricultural implement.

Three years ago the woman made history. Faced with a whole raft of pate-de-foie-gras--bellied, nose-well-in-the-trough administrators of a gravy train created by our lying scheming treacherous government from a once proud organisation that used to call itself a National Health Service, each of which blustered over an excuse as to why she had to die prematurely so they could continue to enjoy their bloated lifestyle of fine wine and fine food, Anne Marie Rogers took the whole sorry greasy stinking lot of them to court and won the right to receive treatment.

She was one of many, many women for whom a death sentence had been pronounced courtesy of breast cancer and the bloody abysmal treatment regieme in this country.

And when she discovered that a drug called Herceptin offered her not a means to escape her upcoming appointment with the grim reaper but tat least the opportunity to put off the appointment for a few years, she jumped at the chance. And then Tony Blair's Postcode Lottery watchdog said 'Niet'

"The drug was too expensive", they bleated. "We have far better things to do with the public purse".

Yeah. Like renovating Derry Irvine's plush official accomodation and handing out free bathroom makeovers to all 650 members of parliament with the brass neck to select them from the John Lewis List

But Anne Marie Rogers was not going to take this lying down. Fighting the disease that was going to kill her, she battled on in the courts, and she won.

Embarrassed health ministers had to come out and say that it was, indeed, a scandal that "life-prolonging medication" was "unavailable on the basis of cost".

So I should bloody well think. It should never have been allowed to be in the first place.

I started paying tax in my late teens and I have been ripped off by tory and labour government alike for more than thirty years. And during that time I reckon that I have handed over a sum of money to our National health Service that exceeds the burden I have placed on it by at least fifty fold, probably double that. And I allowed this to continue because like everyone else who was also mugged by successive chancellors, I knew that one day, the roulette wheel would come up green zero.

For me that day came about six months ago and the fact that I sit here typing this like a Star Trek Borg, wired to one machine on my belt that takes my blood pressure every thirty minutes and will do so for the next seventeen hours, and also covered in sticky electrodes wired to another smaller dongle that will continuously monitor my ECG for two days, is a warning that I am not as bulletproof as I once was and also testament if any were needed to the depths to which the scum that run our banking system, who give not a toss for the lives and the health of the employees that they ruin, will plunge as they pursue their aim of wealth for themselves and shit for the rest of us.

But I'm not gone yet and from these readings I think I'll be able to attend Blair's state funeral in the flesh, although admittedly I may rattle a bit from the pills I may have to pop between then and now.

Sod it, I'm going up the pub as soon as I hit the publish button on this entry.

And I will raise a glass to the memory of Ann Marie Rogers who gave the tight fisted scum that run our NHS a kick up the Khyber Pass they richly deserved.