CCTV in public loos

There I was reading my own page, when I noticed I forgot to mention Virgin Trains spying on men in the loo. If you go into the male toilets in Wolverhampton train station you will notice there is CCTV between the washing basins and the urinals. Apparently this is for ’security’ reasons and to stop people vandalising the urinals or using drugs. The fact that drug users are just as likely to go to the cubical and shoot up, seems to have been ignored by good old Virgin. As for the urnial excuse. How can they tell who did what unless they are looking at the urinal and the lad peeing? Hence my claim that Virgin trains (the people who run the station) are spying on men in the loo.To this serious issue, it has to be asked if it is a good idea to get children to think it is perfectly OK to pee in front of a camera? I don’t and I think anyone that spies on the inside of a loo is rather sick in the head and should concentrate on porn rather than trying to brainwash the public into thinking it is OK to be spied on EVERYWHERE we go

Random drug test on children?

This is a growing problem in the UK. It seems that some parents have so much distruss in thei children they like the idea of their children being forced to have random drug test. Schools seem to love the idea too, but concidering they liked the idea of introducing ‘virtual strip searches’ in schools, the fact they demand children take drug test is no surprise. The problem?

First of all the drug test (which is classed as a medical) is done in front of the rest of class by taking a check swab which is tested there and then (no privacy about the results).

It creates distrust. Teachers and parents are in effect telling their children they don’t trust them whilst the teachers and parents dont have to be tested.

They are not as reliable as they are promoted. At one school 2 pupils had a false positive, one of them failed because the toothpaste she used was confused with crystal meth.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=439743&in_page_id=1770&in_page_id=1770&expand=true#StartComments

The testing breaches medical ethics as pupils are being forced to have a medical exam (they have no way of saying no without being accused of being a drug user by the ‘nothing to hide nothing to fear’ crap brigade). The pupils that failed were model pupils, which made the school think something was wrong. I very much doubt the school would have thought that if the pupils were ‘trouble’ pupils. Personally, I think if a trouble pupil gets a positive, they will be treated very differently by the school. But then again, I could be wrong. I doubt I am wrong, but never say never. Teachers are now even allowed to search pupils, although it should be stressed that this search is no way near as bad as they have in the USA where schools are allowed to strip-search children (http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/092006search.cfm). There has already been a few instances of this happening even before this became law (might want to think twice about going to the States to stay if you have children).Then again, it could be worse. You could be going through Israel where morals and ethics dont seem to apply and security staff are allowed to abuse men, woman and children ( http://www.counterpunch.org/weir03152007.html). Personally I think it is sick that such abusers are allowed anywhere near adults let alone near children. I wonder if Israel would be offended if this was happening to Jewish children (Jewish children are exempt from being abused by the security services)? I’m not saying it should, It should not happen to anyone and I don’t have a problem with saying anyone that thinks this is OK, is sick in the head. It does raise the question, are the security services only doing this to humiliate men, woman and children in the hope they don’t return?

admin staff and medical records

When you tell your doctor/consultant something, sometimes it is just between the 2 of you, but that is not always the case. It depends on what practice you go to and even between individual doctors/consultants.

For example some doctors make their own notes, while others simply tell one of the clerical staff so they can put it in your notes. That means if you were to see 2 different doctors for something, the people that know will vary. This means in some cases only the GP will know about that UTI, thrush or sexual problem, in other cases, the info will be shared. Even if they do not share it straight away, a lot of practice will allow admin staff full access to records in order to get information. For example if they wish to do a clinical audit, then admin staff will be allowed access to the clinical data where the patient can be identified or where they can guess who it belongs to. Nobody, not even NHS Grampian seems to be able to say admin staff need to know you have been raped/abused, had sexual problems, emotional problems, chest infection or a bad case of thrush. They are also not capable of saying why a receptionist needs to have access to the Emergency Care Summary

Researchers and medical records

Your data might be getting shared for research without your consent. This is very complicated. If you have had treatment you should contact the data controller to ask if it has been shared. Even this might not be straight forward as they may be allowed to say no even if it has if they claim saying yes would cause you or others harm. Identifiable data from GUM clinics has already been shared under Section Sixty of the Health and Social Care Act 2001. There are even laws that allow the doctor to be fined £5000.00 if they respect your rights to privacy and refuse to share your clinical data! There are an ever-increasing number of reasons for sharing our data and a growing number wanting access (source Health Care Standards Unit).

According to the Patient Information Advisory Group, Section Sixty can not be used if you have said no (but remember there are other laws that will allow them access even where you have said no and trying to get this refusal put in your records is extremely difficult. Over the last 20+ years I have said no to sharing several times but it never seemed to find it’s way into my records and some of those that were aware of it withdrew medical treatment). There is also a lot of controversy about why cancer researchers in the UK are allowed access to identifiable medical data when others such as the Germans are capable of doing research without it. That hardly makes it a “need to know” basis for sharing, yet it gets done. There is also nothing stopping them from asking the patient and allowing the patient to see the info before it is sent. This would help the patient know what is being shared and allows them to check it to make sure what they said was recorded accurately. It would also give them the chance to supply data they did not think was important). It seems however, that researchers in the UK do not like this and want to get the data regardless of what the patient thinks/says. PIAG have even gone as far as to say it would be acceptable for identifiable data to be released about patients in the final stages of their terminal condition without their consent. Some people seem to think that it is insensitive to ask but OK to steal it behind the patients back and just hope they do not find out. If that is not a betrayal, then what is? It seems a case of what they do not know, will not hurt them, until they find out that is.