Is there hope?

According to the Jobbing Doctor there may be. Here's what the Secretary of State for Health has to say on the topic of denying health care to failed asylum seekers:

I understand all the points made by the clinicians we consulted, about the public health risks, the sheer inhumanity of refusing to treat people who are ill in primary care.

He is right. The clinicians were right. It is our willingness to do our best to look after the sick, all of them, that is part of what our country is about. Dr Grumble does not have a full grasp of the rules but he has had to take on the unenviable task of having to deny treatment to undocumented migrants. Managers don't do this job. It's the doctors. It's the toughest thing Dr Grumble has to do. Others make the rules. Dr Grumble delivers the message. Dr Grumble is happy to give his own time to these poor people but that does not pay their hospital bills. You can understand why taxpayers might want to be tough on migrants but they do not have to see the consequent misery themselves. Perhaps if they did they would care. Perhaps they wouldn't. Who knows?

New Labour has been a disappointment to Dr Grumble. The Blairites did not care much for the poor and needy. They had never been poor and needy themselves. Their main aim in life was to ensure they never would. They cared about the markets, the bankers and the financiers of London. They took the view that these gamblers with other people's money were creating wealth. They had no concept of the real wealth of a nation residing in stability and in its willingness to care for those in need.

Dr Grumble has met Alan Johnson. Last year he shook his hand. Mr Johnson had no idea of his good fortune to be in the presence of a top medical blogger. But good fortune it was because Dr Grumble, in preparation for his meeting, consulted wikipedia on Alan Johnson and from that moment on the Secretary of State went sky high in the Grumble estimation. Sooner or later Grumble was going to give him a well deserved plug. Alan Johnson you see is a real genuine person with a real background that enables him to understand the lot of the deprived. He understands the value of a society that really cares, that looks after the sick and ministers to those in need. He understands that that is a society with true wealth.

Here is the bit from wikipedia which Dr Grumble will always remember about Alan Johnson. It brought tears to the Grumble eyes:

Born in London and orphaned at the age of 12 years when his mother died, Johnson was then effectively brought up by his older sister when the two were assigned a council flat by their child welfare officer.

Alan Johnson left school at 15 and started work stacking shelves at Tesco. Despite those humble beginnings he made it to the top. He deserves it. Alan Johnson understands the world in a way that Tony Blair and his Tory facsimile will never ever be able to grasp. He can grasp what it must be like to be the 12 year old orphan of a failed asylum seeker who is denied health care.