The Unkindest Cut (Again)

I am a big fan of the National Health Service in general and the local Trust in particular. Over many years, it has provided a healthy diet of stories for my cartoon in The Westmorland Gazette.

This week it has served up another front page story with news that it is cutting 230 jobs in the coming months, in a bid to reduce its deficit (which was in turn the due to the combined efforts of managers, our glorious government and its predecessor).

A couple of other stories also drifted past the Cartoon Desk. 

The first is that passengers alighting at the railway station known as OXENHOLMETHELAKEDISTRICT are often distraught to discover that the nearest lake is 11 miles away.

The other story is that the recent visit to great Tower Scout Camp by the Duchess of Cambridge has caused a recruitment surge …

You can see all six ideas below. These were subjected to the stern gaze of my steamed editor. 

But which did he pick for the front page?

More to the point, which would you pick? 

Add your comments below and then hobble over to my website to see if morphic resonance has worked its magic.

Health Scare

Your health is important. My health is important. I’d argue that my health is more important than your health but I think we’ve established the principle that, generally speaking, health is pretty important.

That’s probably why it appears in the news so often. And because politicians, administrators, managers and other unimaginative fiddlers keep interfering with it.

Morecambe Bay Primary Care University Hospitals Trust (re-arrange those words into whichever order they’re using them this month) has announced that it has a £30m shortfall in its budget. So it has announced economy measures. These include booting patients out at night, employing boy scouts as anesthetists and switching off computers at bedtime (only one of those is invented).

I have a long history of drawing cartoons about the Health Trust for The Westmorland Gazette. I’ve done most of the obvious ones - “it’s condition is critical” - so don’t react with total glee when the Trust features as the front page story. 

But there are always more jokes to be mined and here are seven of them.

You - yes, you, ill or not - can say which you think should have gone on the front page by adding a comment below.

Then take up your crutches and hobble over to my website to see if the Gazette’s editor agreed with you.

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