Why are notable Rohingya figures silent about Israel and Gaza?
by: Shafiur Rahman
Why are notable Rohingya figures silent about Israel and Gaza?
by: Shafiur Rahman
The National Health Service (NHS) is celebrating its 75th
birthday this year. It is a remarkable institution that has provided free
healthcare to the British people for over seven decades. The NHS has faced many
challenges over the years, but it has also achieved great things.
The NHS was founded in 1948, just after the end of World War
II. At the time, the UK was in a state of economic and social upheaval. The NHS
was created to provide free healthcare to everyone, regardless of their ability
to pay. This was a radical idea at the time, but it was one that was welcomed
by the British people.
The NHS has faced many challenges over the years. In the 1970s, it was hit by a series of financial crises. In the 1980s, it was subjected to a series of reforms by the Conservative government. These reforms led to a decline in morale among staff and the quality of care; and the NHS was accused of being inefficient and bureaucratic.
The government has enabled real-term pay cuts, service overloads and chronic underinvestment within the NHS. - by Anonymous
Source: newstatesman.com |
This week, I, along with thousands of fellow ambulance workers belonging to the Unison union across England, have voted to take strike action. We know it’s a shock – but we’re doing it out of necessity: not just for ourselves, but for the future of the NHS.
I’ve been a paramedic for more than 27 years, and I’ve seen the health service in all kinds of states – but this is the worst I’ve ever known it to be. For the past 12 years, my colleagues and I have said to each other “surely, it can’t get any worse?” and yet here we are.
Diagnosing the issues paramedics face is easy – because they’re the same problems the rest of my NHS colleagues, across various disciplines, are dealing with: dwindling pay, service overloads and a chronic underinvestment in the health service.
Don’t let pressure and overwork encourage you to hurry past parts of your life. Whether it’s your children’s early life, whole segments of your marriage, or maybe the last active years of loved parents, they are swiftly past and gone beyond recall. Regret comes too late to save them.
How many
people still cherish an unfulfilled ambition to travel, or start their own
business, or enter a new career, and yet do nothing to make it happen? Too
many. Time passes. What was once an inspiring idea seems less and less feasible.
Yet still they cling to the dream — only not this year. Maybe next year, when
things calm down a little. When they’re not so busy. When they have the time.
We are so confused about time. We always have the same amount of
it, since we can neither create more, nor save any for later, nor do away with
what there is. Yet our perception of time is totally different. Sometimes it
seems to drag in endless amounts. Sometimes it appears to flash past. Only our
perception changes. Time itself does not.
Of course, what we mean is time free from other demands. But we will never have
that either. There are always other calls on our attention and always will be.
If you’re waiting for that magical day when nothing else awaits you, only your
dream ready for fulfilment, you will wait for ever.
The truth is simple. People confuse what is urgent with what is
important; what is pressing today with what is pressing in terms of their whole
life. A task stands before you and shouts for your attention because it’s here,
now, and must be done by tomorrow. So you set aside far more important
activities and choices because they’re not urgent. You can do them tomorrow, no
matter. Only that tomorrow never comes.
To live this way is understandable — it is how
the vast majority live — but it’s neither sensible nor fulfilling. All those
unmet dreams and expectations build up, until you enter the later part of life
trailing a vast, sad cloud of “might have beens.” So many people today are
filled with regret at the opportunities they missed because there were more
urgent claims at the time. As they look back, they see clearly those claims
were never as important as the hopes they supplanted. Now it’s too late.
To choose a fulfilling path, you must be clear about your
values, so you can see the difference between demands that are only urgent, but
otherwise have little importance in the scheme of your life; and those that may
lack obvious urgency, yet are crucial to who you are and what you want your
life to be. You must have the courage to use your time on important matters and
set aside what’s merely urgent.
If there’s a dream in your life — something you yearn to achieve, or merely something it would be so much fun to try — don’t put it aside. If that dream is up there at the top (or very near the top) of your personal values, do it now. Yes, now. Don’t wait another day. Nothing is as important to your long-term wellbeing. But if your dream doesn’t make it to the top of your list, set it aside without regret. Like a pretty toy, it may be pleasant to look at, but it’s not important enough to give time to.
Choice may not remove regret entirely — you may always wonder a little what it might have been like — but at least you’ll know you did choose. You didn’t look back later and realize you’d missed that boat without ever grasping it was ready to leave.
(Photo by Observer and WHO) |