It is simply bonkers to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds in benefits to secure the services of foreign NHS staff like Arnold Mballe Sube
His family has cost the taxpayer an estimated £44,000 a year in benefits and our broken benefits system needs fixing now
IT’S a simple statement of fact that we don’t have enough British doctors and nurses to staff the NHS.
Training more is important. As things stand, however, we need foreign staff to keep the show on the road.
But what’s simply bonkers is paying hundreds of thousands of pounds in benefits to secure their services.
It’s costing the NHS £27,000 to pay for Arnold Mballe Sube’s psychiatric nursing degree. For the NHS, that’s doubtless money well spent.
Except it’s not just costing £27,000. Because the rest of us now have to spend a fortune supporting Mr Sube’s family.
Any benefit the NHS receives from paying for Mr Sube’s training is lost hundreds of times over.
So much for joined-up government. The system is broken – and needs fixing, now.
Fees ill-judged
IT’S not asking much that when you need to visit a sick relative or friend in hospital, the NHS isn’t going to fleece you.
But it still happens more often than not.
Official figures show that last year hospitals took in at least £116.2million in car park fees — and the real total is likely to be nearer to £190million.
Yes, car parks need to be maintained. But the sums needed for that are trivial — and nothing like last year’s 7.6 per cent increase in parking fees.
NHS Trusts are simply using them as an excuse to rip drivers off — despite Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s pledge to end rip-off charges.
Time to stop speaking and start acting, Mr Hunt.
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Con weaselly
IS THERE a more weasel-like excuse of a politician than Sir Keir Starmer?
Before becoming a Labour MP, he was Director of Public Prosecutions — and was instrumental in the politically driven decision to prosecute 21 Sun journalists after the £30million witch-hunt that was Operation Elveden.
Now that the last case has finally collapsed just like all of the previous 20, you might think that common decency — or at least a sense of shame — would lead to an apology to those whose lives were ruined by the fiasco.
But quizzed on TV yesterday by Robert Peston, Starmer refused to utter a word of apology.
And he doesn’t just lack the decency to apologise.
Now he’s even trying to wriggle out of his responsibility for the prosecutions, instead blaming everyone else involved.
On second thoughts maybe comparing Starmer to a weasel is unfair... to weasels.
