I missed posting yesterday partly because I was a bit under the weather. Thanks to great antibiotics and the efforts of the GP at the Harlow NHS Walk-In Centre, I feel a lot better.
The Walk-In Centre provides a great service as you can see a GP fairly quickly for small complaints, especially when your own surgery is busy. On this occasion, I was seen within twenty minutes, although I did once wait 90 minutes on a previous occasion. Despite a £700,000 Government cutback in grant to the centre, it does still provide a good service.
There was one thing that mystified me regarding my visit. The kind and helpful receptionist who logged in my details on the computer, asked me my religion. When I asked why this information was needed, I was told that this was a compulsory, and I had to answer.
Now, its not that I have a problem with telling people about my religion, I just object to it being part of a Government ruling ,that in order to see a doctor, I must provide that information. Why? Because it has no bearing on my health complaint. The question is intrusive and designed to fill one Government target or another. Its unnecessary and wrong.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Religion at the NHS Walk-In Centre
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Thanks for speaking out about the sinister intrusion into our privacy. I'm as sick of it as you are. The government is building a huge database of information about the citizens of our country. They are trying to force ID Cards on us and even collect the fingerprints of school children!
ReplyDeletePrivacy International has blacklisted UK alongside countries like China for our government's endemic intrusion into our private lives. How dreadful is that! Do our government have no decency or shame and no respect for citizens and our privacy whatsoever?
The government's own Information Commissioner has warned that we are sleep walking into a surveillance state. UK, with just 1% of the world's population, has 20% of the western world's surveillance.
The dreadful pictures of innocent people being attacked by the police during the G20 demonstration show that we are fast becoming a police state too.
Our government constantly abuses its power to threaten its own citizens without blinking an eye. And it's all too clear that Mr Brown jealously guards the privacy of politicians, celebs and the rich from much of this intrusion.
Why do Gordon Brown and his government distrust the people of our country so much that they have made us the most watched and surveillanced people in the western world?
I think Gordon Brown and the government ministers who have trampled all over our privacy and democracy should be given Asbos after they lose the next election and made to do many hundreds of hours of community service as punishment.
Please make them wear orange jumpsuits too :)