Prepare to be appalled

Here's a piece from one of Ronald Reagan's radio addresses from 1975:

"Around noon on May 11, a five year old boy fell into the river [dividing East and West Berlin]. Firemen from West Berlin started to go to his rescue. An East German patrol boat barred them from entering the water because at that point the stream flows wholly on East Berlin territory. The five year old boy drowned."

Reagan continued:

"The Mayor of West Berlin described the refusal of the East German guards to permit the westerners to come to his rescue as "an incomprehensible and frightful act, placing political considerations before the saving of a human life" - which is exactly what they did. Remember - they were in a patrol boat. They chose to prevent the West Germans from entering the Eastern water, rather than going to the child's rescue themselves. But they did tidy things up. Three hours later, East German frogmen recovered his body. Communism is neither an economic nor a political system. It's a form of insanity, a temporary aberration that will one day disappear from the earth because it is contrary to human nature. But I wonder how much more misery it will cause before it disappears".

Today I read of the tragic case of Rebecca Wedd, a student left to die by the side of the road after an air ambulance was refused to cross a county boundary. The air ambulance had been three minutes from the scene but NHS rules prevented Rebecca from being saved.

You will therefore see, no doubt, why Ronald Reagan's remarks on East German border guards letting that five year old child drown came to mind. Whichever bureaucrat made the decision not to allow the air ambulance to save Rebecca Wedd should be named, shamed, fired and sued. What kind of dogmatic cretin puts NHS regulations ahead of saving lives? Isn't that what the NHS is there for?