Waste, fraud and abuse

One of the local branches of Britain's National Health Service, flush with pride at their (nonexistent) stellar service record and (not) short wait times for treatment, now wants to spend almost $700,000 dollars of their subjects' money... on a yacht.

What, you might ask, does a yacht have to do with health care?

"It would sail with a crew of unemployed teenagers into the North Sea and around Scandinavia, as part of a training programme to help them into work. The idea is that they would return from the high seas not only with skills such as navigation and engineering, but an understanding of the benefits of healthy living."

Let me get this straight. This "scheme" would allow a small number of jobless teens to cruise around learning sailing skills that, while nice to have, no longer apply to today's shipping industry, and somehow this is supposed to convince them to exercise and eat properly once they dock? I fail to see how the return on investment is going to justify this expenditure in any way.

The local head of the health service lets the real cat out of the bag:

"Kath Lavery, chairman of NHS Hull, defended the scheme. 'It’s a massive programme of intervention in young people’s lifestyles and choices,' she said."

In other words, indoctrination of their youth into how they want them to behave, instead of allowing them to make their own life choices, by enticing them with a cool boat ride.

I agree with one of the commenters on the article:

"How dare they spend money on this and crow on about being short of funds. Their job is to treat sick people not solve the cities employment problems"

Amen, brother.

Wasting money in ways such as this is but one of the reasons why socialized medicine is failing miserably in Britain. Do you really wish to have similar results in this country?