Introducing GIRFEA

There was always the feeling that if the Named Person scheme went uncontested that it would not end when a child reached eighteen years old: once the file was opened on that particular individual, it would remain so. The Named Person was merely the way to initiate state monitoring of the entire population of Scotland. The Supreme Court judgment curtailing these plans was an important victory.

Now it is horrifying to find out that plans are afoot to introduce GIRFEA, Getting it Right for Every Adult with a proposed single point of contact and its own wellbeing indicators. The committee began by looking at new ways to manage the elderly and it has now morphed into managing everybody.

I have my own reasons to be very worried about this latest development. Twenty four years ago I was treated for hypothyroidism. Ordinarily this is one of the few conditions that is very simple to treat. One tablet a day can restore a person to normality but it does require the correct dose. In my case, I could not get the dose sufficient for my requirements and I was left unable to function. What happens is that a doctor will tend to treat the blood test result instead of the patient. So if the lab report says NORMAL that is taken as the final word on the matter. Strictly speaking doctors should also listen to their patients because the lab result is only an indirect measure of what is happening at the cellular level.

To add insult to injury when I complained that I was being undertreated, it was my mental health that was questioned. That seems to be standard medical practice.

Fortunately, although I seldom could leave my home due to my condition, I did have access to the internet. In my own slow time I was able to research the problem. Probably because there is a private health care system, and people can switch between doctors until they get the treatment they are looking for, a lot of information came from the United States. It only took me a couple of days until I had access to research papers that I could provide to my doctor. He was extremely angry with me but I will be forever grateful that he allowed me to do the trial and decide for myself on the dose. My chemist is well aware how unusual this is because she keeps telling me.

Now I can well imagine that if there had been a single point of contact making decisions about my wellbeing that I could have been left trapped forever in a non-functioning condition. It is becoming clearer by the day that the welfare state is being deliberately collapsed and the state is going to decide who gets treatment and who does not. The elderly are a nuisance; so are the long term sick and disabled which is why they are the first to be targeted.

There always was more to the Named Person scheme than information sharing.

See David Scott`s article on GIRFEA below:

http://www.ukcolumn.org/article/whats-coming-over-hill

　      Published on 8 Feb 2013

Scottish thyroid patients Sandra Whyte, Marian Dyer and Lorraine Cleaver met with Scottish Parliament on Tuesday, February 5, 2013 regarding their petition, "Effective Thyroid and Adrenal Testing, Diagnosis and Treatment".

      [Their petition didn`t get anywhere.]