Angles saxons and history

Those of my readers (if there are any now that I am effectively censored) who remember any of the history they were taught at school particularly early history will know that if you want to understand the present you have to study the past. The teaching of history however is now so impoverished that all anyone knows anything about is the origins of the Second World War, and Tudors and Stewarts. However, if you go back further you may recall how the Vikings fought with the Angles and Saxons and discovered that it was less costly in lives and more profitable to extract money with promises of safety from further attacks (menace money in modern parlance), the so called Danegeld (nothing to do with Germany). So after various incursions on this foreign soil by both Angles and Vikings an uneasy truce now exists though inevitably the locals are bloodied and having to rebuild their lives now it seems as educationalists rather than the bringers of relief, but both I am sure are important. It is however currently 30 luv to the educationalists (that is quite enough mixed metaphors). I am however saddened, being used to a system where care is free at the point of delivery to see people turned away if they have no money and to watch, as I am at the moment, a young woman die of heart failure as her family are either unable (possibly the case) or unwilling (probably the case) to donate any blood. I will do my best to keep her alive but am concerned.
We have more faranji visitors now in the shape of midwifery students from Edinburgh, who are innocents personified at the moment but will I hope develop as a result of their experience and might perhaps decide that a career, particularly an early career in the developing world may greatly add to their ability to cope in the developed world and perhaps see some of the flaws in the system from whence they came. You can keep people alive and safe even with minimal resources and perhaps that may be enough, certainly rescuing people from their obstructed labour when you can will keep them alive, and perhaps some education may stop them getting into that situation again, but in this country the education has to be directed at the husband and keeper of the geld as it seems wives are expendable, and not worth either transport costs or a temporary 2 Grm drop in haemoglobin. I have suggested to our Faranji visitors that they try to look at the history of those who turn up with obstructed labour (sadly fewer as no danegeld to pay) and see where the delays occurred. I am told we have some medical students coming too so maybe I can get a research team together – we shall see. The private sector which if nothing else bought me alimony and children’s education was fine when there was an alternative but is uncomfortable when real need remains unmet, but then I am sure that sustainability and education will stop all this!
Meanwhile my other nearly exsanguinated patient (bad tear, normal delivery, yes it happens here too), is well and going home as her brothers rallied to the cause and she is pink and well and now home. I am off on a week’s holiday soon to visit Lalebela and rock hewn churches etc. happily over the time that the prolapse tourists arrive so I will not have to vent my spleen on them though I have hopefully arranged for the mesh erosion ladies to return for their remedial surgery over this time, I wonder if they get a second dress? Our own complication is a wound infection following removal of rotting cervical tumour but it is granulating well, though her husband is pursuing me with unstamped receipts and tales of starvation. She comes a distance so I hope we can get her home soon. Histology reports are beginning to trickle in but contain no useful information like resection margins but tell us like many histology reports, what you already know – er got cancer. Ultimately they will either survive or not, but as Thomas Stone remarked (yes I have read the novel, novel reading is unusual for me) you do not want to operate on a patient on the day of their death and I have yet to do that on one of the cancer patients though one of the young septic obstructed labour patients sadly succumbed from her complications shortly after her twins. All avoidable of course if intervention had been timely, perhaps education would have helped.
If it were not for the importance of Karen’s research which also suffers from obstruction but of another sort, I would leave the Angles, Saxons and Vikings to fight it out with their local lascars and go south to where an unwell single handed obstetrician would welcome a hand and a new medical school would welcome some teaching input, but no I will remained a censored voyeur and continue to report in more guarded terms to my remaining readership, in academically correct and measured words (get real that is quite enough cant).