The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed many scientists, doctors, nurses and experts from all domains of healthcare as charlatans, snake oil merchants and being heavily conflicted in their interests the areas of biotechnology and pharmaceuticals.
Once seen, this cannot be unseen.
Let’s be honest: none of us ever wants to be sick—or do we? Perhaps that is another debate, given the apparent enthusiasm to offer one’s arm up for an experimental, untested injection that may or may not change our lives forever, for all the wrong reasons. As a baby boomer, I have never known anything other than the National Health Service, the jewel in Britain's crown, the national treasure we have all come to rely on and love. It’s a given that we all feel this conditioned love for an institution that has stood us in good stead for the last 70 years.
Banging pans on doorsteps and waving rainbow NHS flags, the British public paid homage to our frontline warriors battling to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of poorly Brits. The NHS, the pride of our nation, one of the biggest employers in the world, with the greatest ‘scientists and experts’—what luck is ours! So much so that out of a couple of hundred of other countries on the face of the earth, not one has adopted the same model since we did in 1948. Perhaps we’ve been lulled into a false sense of security. Is the NHS what we thought it was, or is there a darker side?
In 2022, there are still millions of us who don’t have far to walk down memory lane to remember the light, airy hospitals, smelling of disinfectant, as only a hospital could. The wards were bright with open windows and vases of flowers on every locker, nestling beside get-well cards and fruit bowls overflowing with grapes. Nurses would be bustling around the wards in their pristine and reassuring uniforms. There were doctors in white coats, and chairs by every bed.
Visiting hours were fairly strict, but visitors and family were always made welcome. Families and visitors were our regulators, never backwards in coming forwards. They kept us on our toes, but they also protected us fiercely, and most were forever grateful that we were there to step in and temporarily adopt their sick relatives as our own family to help them through the tough times, whatever the outcome.
Apprehension
Fear of something quite different from that setup, a fear which appears to be sweeping through the country by stealth, unnoticed and ignored, is starting to come out of the shadows. What is the elephant in the room that many are now admitting to perceiving but don’t like to talk about?
The ‘elephant’ is an intense fear of the NHS in the UK and those working within it. Thousands, possibly millions in the UK could be experiencing this. I admit that I am.
How can this be possible? As a nurse shaped by the NHS, proud of my uniform before my retirement, with a training acclaimed as one of the best in the world, the NHS was my vocation. The NHS delivered all my children safely, and on two occasions saved their lives when they were critically ill. They cared for my mother, and have made me better on many occasions.
So why am I making contingency plans in my head of how to avoid the NHS at all costs? Why am I leaving instructions with my children of what to do if they find me ill or injured at home? Why am I cautious when going out? Is it because I may catch a ‘virus’ and get sick? No; it is because I am witnessing many people having accidents in medical settings; more than normal. Many who were young and healthy are becoming suddenly sick.
Whom am I placing my trust in when I drive my car? Myself, or others sharing the road with me? Whom am I placing my trust in when I catch a bus, taxi or train? Who is flying my plane? Who will look after me, should I—through no fault of my own—be involved in an incident where I get swept up into the NHS machine, perhaps never to be seen again? Worse still, what would happen if one of my children or another member of my family needed hospitalisation? How would I know how they were being looked after? How would I know they were safe?
The simple truth is, I wouldn’t. Hospitals are no place for relatives or friends any more: the NHS has turned into an ‘exclusive’ organisation for all the wrong reasons. Effectively, unless we do something drastic soon, we are all prisoners within it. Fortunately for me, I am not reliant on the NHS for any life-saving or life-changing treatment, and can quite easily survive on natural remedies, but many are not as fortunate and have conditions whereby they are utterly reliant on the services that the NHS provides. Where else in Britain are they to go to get the help they need?
My instincts, as what can only be described as an old-school nurse, are telling me that what I am seeing and witnessing is alien to everything that I was taught. Basic nursing care appears to have been abandoned; personal one-to-one human contact has almost gone. Dying British patients have been pictured holding inflated rubber gloves in their hands to replace those of their loved ones. Respiratory depressant pharmaceuticals are being given to patients with respiratory depression. Why would any medical professional wish to disregard the official pharmaceutical guidance and administer an opioid and benzodiazepine to anyone with a respiratory illness? This is a big red flag.
Why are accelerated ‘end-of-life care plans’ being put in place for far too many, far too quickly? Why are significant numbers of previously healthy, active people going into hospital but never coming home? When did it become the fashion to place ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ orders on anyone deemed vulnerable or past their usefulness date, regardless of age or of any discussion or otherwise with family members? I am becoming concerned about seeing people I love ending up in what I can only perceive as positions of danger when they are at their most vulnerable.
Am I a mediphobic? (This is the term I’ve coined to illustrate a rational fear of medical personnel). Or perhaps I am expertphobic? (Another term made up by me to describe a rational fear of experts from all disciplines of science.)
The speed with which we have all accepted ‘isolation’ and tyranny as normal is staggering. Masks, vaccine status, social responsibility and fake altruism appears to have replaced, logic, discernment and good old-fashioned common sense and compassion.
Can we opt out?
To see whether I was alone in reaching this conclusion, I started gently seeding conversations with a question rather than a statement—something such as ‘I’m cautious about needing the NHS, to be honest’—only to be met with a look of acknowledgement and a sombre bow of the head in agreement.
Often, this leads to a more frank conversation which reveals that I am far from alone. Many are feeling the same, with the most common statement being, ‘I have already opted out of sharing my data, but how do I opt out of the NHS?’.
I had asked the same question to myself, so I decided to email the Health Secretary at the time, Sajid Javid MP, asking how I could opt out completely of the NHS machine. I received a reply from his office, informing me that there was no mechanism to ‘opt out’ but that I could choose to deregister from my GP. The e-mail also included a hyperlink that took me to information on ‘mental capacity’.
This is what I wrote:
To: [username]@dhsc.gov.uk
Sent: Thursday, 11 Nov 2021 at 01:02
Subject: Opting out of NHS
Dear Health Secretary,
Under the Freedom of Information Act, I would like to know how I opt out of the NHS and all healthcare in the UK. I do not wish to be included in the future. Could you advise me of the mechanism by which to do this?
I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours,
Deborah Evans
Retired State-Registered Nurse
The reply:
From: Department of Health and Social Care
To: Evans, Deborah
Sent: Friday, 17 Dec 2021 at 17:18
Subject: Your correspondence of 11 November
Our ref: DE-1373098
Dear Ms Evans,
Thank you for your correspondence of 11 November about opting out of NHS treatment. I have been asked to reply.
The NHS is a residency-based healthcare system, not an insurance-based system, therefore an opt-in or opt-out system is not in operation. However, an individual may choose, if they wish, to deregister from an NHS GP practice.
All individuals who are ordinarily resident in the UK, regardless of whether they are registered with an NHS GP or not, are entitled to access a range of services, which includes accident and emergency (A&E) services—this includes ambulance services, which are considered part of A&E care.
All adults are presumed to have sufficient capacity to decide on their own medical treatment, unless there is significant evidence to suggest otherwise. If an adult lacks the capacity to give consent, a decision about whether to go ahead with the treatment will need to be made by the healthcare professionals treating them. The NHS has published guidance about assessing capacity and it is available on the NHS.UK website at: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/consent-to-treatment/capacity/
For further advice and information about deregistering from a GP and what opting out of NHS treatment means you may wish to contact NHS England in writing to the following email address:
NHS England
Email: england.contactus@nhs.net
I hope this reply is helpful.
Yours sincerely,
[anonymous signatory]
Ministerial Correspondence and Public Enquiries
Department of Health and Social Care
Please do not reply to this email. To contact the Department of Health and Social Care, please visit the Contact DHSC section on gov.uk
I phoned my GP to ask what the procedure was for my being able to pick up my medical records when I de registered. I was informed by the surgery that this would not be possible and in the event that I decided to deregister, my medical records would be archived and stored by the NHS. My medical records were not mine, they belonged to the NHS and there was no way to retrieve them and delete myself from the system. Apparently, the procedure is to wheel my paper notes off in some cart to be stored in a secure archive, whilst the rest of my medical history is ‘on a cloud’ somewhere.
I have been digitalised, and against my knowledge and wish. How do I find the cloud my data is on? When/if I do find it, how do I retrieve my data? How can I release myself from this medical panopticon? Seemingly I can’t. With regard to ‘capacity’ it appears that the criteria appears to have changed. If you are drunk or incoherent for whatever reason you could be deemed as not having capacity to decide what is in your own best interest, leaving that decision for someone else. I don’t feel comfortable with this.
Since finding all this out, I have become more careful as to how I live my life. Taking care on the road, leaving a bit more distance between my car and other cars sharing the road, sitting next to someone masked on the train rings alarm bells in my head, and I prefer to keep a distance rather than sit next to someone who appears to be so scared of getting sick that, on the balance of probabilities, they will probably have had one or possibly more injections and more than likely incubating some strain of Covid-19 variant or some other ‘illness’ that may affect me.
Am I the only one thinking like this? Consciously making adjustments to my lifestyle in order to dodge the NHS? Someone I now call a good friend, who is suffering from severe adverse reactions from the Covid-19 injection, became extremely ill the other week. They couldn’t get out of bed and had a lot of neurological symptoms that on any other day would require immediate attention from a doctor. However, these are no ordinary times, so despite feeling incredibly ill and at one point not knowing if they would recover, they chose to remain at home and remain silent. They were too scared to call the NHS.
No choice
That said, we now find ourselves in uncharted waters; in the UK we have no choice. In any emergency situation, we will all, without question, be routed into the NHS, whether we like it or not. If we are deemed (in the event of unconsciousness or inability to communicate) to ‘lack capacity’ to refuse, we will have no choice. The criteria for determining capacity includes being drunk or under the influence of any drugs that could be seen to compromise capacity. I have thought long and hard about this subject, taken advice, and made an informed decision based upon my own research. I trust myself.
But where do we go from here? Do we all need to sign witnessed papers whilst we are of sound mind, stating that we never consent to being treated within the NHS or by NHS professionals? Are we trapped? Is there any way out? What happens if I lose my balance one day, fall down the stairs and break my neck or back? Whatever happens, my message to my family is the same: please don’t call an ambulance, and please don’t alert the NHS.
I would rather die at home, even in agony, than be carted to a place where I don’t feel safe, a place that is far away from all that is familiar to me. The UK is unique in this respect, and the rest of the world should note what happens when the state controls health utterly. It never ends well. Perhaps the NHS will in due course be renamed the ‘National Security Service’, after Public Health England, Test and Trace, and the Joint Biosecurity Centre (an intelligence body) were combined to form the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA).
For decades, we have been told we are the luckiest country in the world, with the gold standard in heathcare, free at the point of delivery, a national asset to be proud of.
I am not feeling very proud right now. Thanks, but no thanks, I will take my chances away from the NHS.
