The quiet heroism of the @RNLI - whose lifeboat crews & lifeguards have saved nearly 150k lives since its foundation in 1824 – deserves our total respect, not the hate of late.
Take this week in St Agnes, North Cornwall, one over-excited dog, & this 300 foot cliff... 😱 (1/n)
On Wed evening, the waves were high & the atmosphere wild.
Kids and adults alike were shrieking with delight in the surf.
Rupert the dog, a golden retriever, was pretty intoxicated himself as he chased a ball along the coastal footpath... (2/n)
Owners Katie & James watched in horror as Rupert chased his ball straight over the cliff edge.
“We shouted for him to stop but before we knew it, he went for it and tumbled head over tail down the cliff face," said Katie. (3/n)
😱😱😱
Local @RNLI area manager Steve Instance, here on the beach, told me there have been many casualties over this clifftop - none have survived the drop.
Rupert had almost certainly perished. (4/n)
The St Agnes @RNLI lifeboat was scrambled at 8.33pm and launched just 8 minutes later.
Volunteer lifeboat helm, Tom Forehead, said, “With a fall of that nature, it’s fair to say we were expecting the worst."
But... (5/n)
The hapless hound, who had just plummeted 300 feet into the sea, was alive!
"We were delighted to find Rupert frightened but OK. He was tucked in the back of the small cave on the beach, so two of our crew waded over to him and brought him back to the lifeboat." (6/n)
This story is shared with permission & @RNLI are keen to stress that dog owners should keep dogs on leads on cliff paths (& that, if your dog falls, don't attempt to reach it but call 999 & ask for the Coastguard). (7/n)
But the point for me is this.
Every day, on our coastlines and inland, *thousands* of volunteers are doing their bit to keep our waters safe for people in peril and even, occasionally, the odd kamikaze dog.
People like Jill here, in St Agnes (8/n)
Or like Steve, whose Cornish parents were both volunteer lifeguards, and who became one himself when aged only 16.
You don't do this for fame or riches or glory. You do it because you want to help people in need & in danger. (9/n)
The @RNLI, in short - this remarkable network of volunteers, fundraisers, unpaid lifeguards & lifeboat crews who risk their lives to save others - are the absolute best of us. The kindest, most decent, most admirable best of us.
If anyone felt like supporting true bravery not keyboard warriors, proper kindness not Twitter cynicism, decency not racism, love not hate.... you can donate to the @RNLI here.
92% of their donations comes from ordinary members of the public 💙 (ends)
Last comment - the official @RNLI verdict on Rupert is that he is clearly not a normal dog, he's a cat dog.
Last, last comment.
During WW2, my dear granddad was a doctor on a Royal Naval destroyer defending the North Atlantic convoys. His ship once rescued the crew of a torpedoed German U-boat.
I still remember him telling me, as a child: "They were souls in the sea. So we helped."
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I’m simply horrified to see @NHSEngland now literally breaking the law in how it misrepresents physician associates & other allied health professional - who are NOT doctors - to the public.
These posters are from the Bradford District & Craven Health & Care Partnership. 1/n
I downloaded the posters from their website, here:
“Physician” is a title that’s protected in law - to protect you, the public, from the dangers of fake doctors masquerading as the real thing. 2/nbdcpartnership.co.uk/download/96/gp…
Legally, only a qualified doctor with a medical degree can call themselves a physician.
And, though it’s not a legally protected term, I don’t believe anyone who’s not a senior doctor with specialist training in oncology should call themselves a “cancer specialist” either. 3/n
Well, I’ve read the @Conservatives manifesto on health so you don’t have to.
Aside from the expected unfunded nonsense on those 40 fictitious new hospitals, cutting managers & using AI to ‘free up’ doctors & nurses etc, here’s a stand out out example of its vacuousness. 🧵
What even is this verbiage? A ‘plan’ to prevent cancer from occurring, but also to give patients the best possible care? When over 235,000 cancer patients have had their treatment delayed in the last 3 years?
Come on, @Conservatives, this is offensive.
Quite apart from the fact that this is an old policy, announced last year & repackaged as new, it glosses over the unforgivably bad treatment cancer (& other) patients are receiving on your watch, @Conservatives. pulsetoday.co.uk/news/clinical-…
Over 80 Fellows of @RCPhysicians have just declared their lack of confidence in the College.
Why?
Because they believe its stance on physician associates (PAs) is recklessly failing patients.
Pls read - this matters. 🧵
The Fellows - over a quarter of whom are professors - are appalled by @RCPhysicians' role in in enabling the government's project of replacing doctors with cheaper & less well-trained doctor substitutes (PAs) in an extraordinary array of medical jobs across the NHS.
.@RCPhysicians has persistently ignored, belittled & silenced the widespread concerns of its Members and Fellows over its enthusiastic embrace of the govt’s agenda of using doctor substitutes in the NHS.
The GMC have tweeted this in response to widespread alarm from doctors at a video showing an 'AA' (anaesthetic associate) openly bragging about using "local governance" to get away with less supervision by doctors.
🧵 Whatever your views on assisted dying, one thing I’d hoped we’d all agree on is that the topic is ethically fraught & complex.
Not so Matthew Parris.
For him, it’s simple. Old & frail people *should* be killed - to save society the cost of looking after them. 1/n
In no sense am I twisting Parris’s words.
Here he rehearses an argument often used by opponents of AD to fight legal change - that with time, it will lead to people feeling pressured to end their lives prematurely (for it would be socially irresponsible of them not to). 2/n
Parris, you’ll have noted, takes that argument to a chilling extreme. He imagines compulsion/coercion being used - a world in which AD would be “urged upon” people.
And far from rejecting that world, he positively embraces it. 3/n