The National Health Page #5

you can for people!

- Whether they're useful or not!

- But what can you do?

You can't cure loneliness.

Ugliness. Boredom.

The best you can hope for

is that they'll be lonely

on clean sheets.

Ugly on tapioca pudding.

And to hell with

the quality of life.

You can't hear yourself think

down there for the squeak of rubber gloves.

This surgeon, he looked at

his list of operations, he said:

"This lot now and,

after dinner, four abortions."

He said to me, he said:

"It's murder mile.

"All morning we save the old.

All afternoon we kill the young."

Mr Flagg?

Staff!

Sister!

Better let him have a lie down.

This fellows returned to go...

Flagg's gone up one.

They don't even bother

to move me any more.

Sing a different song, Mr Mackie.

Well, at least it shows that

you don't expect me to last...

much longer.

Come on, cheer up!

Use your earphones.

Good God!

And now his renal function's

down to two per cent.

Why did he not report it sooner?

Perhaps he really thought it

was a pulled muscle, sir.

There must have been

other symptoms.

Like lack of appetite,

diminished micturition,

haematuria, pyonephrosis...

which would have

entailed a nephrectomy.

He must have felt like an acid head

after a really far-out trip.

Do you mind talking to us

in English, Mr Monk?

In English,

both his kidneys are rotten.

He can only survive

in a machine.

A machine?

No, I only consider dialysis

as pre-operative.

You mean you think

we should transplant?

What else can we do?

But he's Blood Group B, sir!

Are there no Group B

cadaver kidneys?

I doubt it, sir.

I'm Group A, or he could

have had one of mine.

He'd never have allowed that, sir.

He would never

have been asked, Sister.

Let's face it,

there isn't much chance of finding

a living donor Of the right tissue type.

Isn't he an only child?

So there's no near relative.

We'll put out an immediate call

for Group B cadavers.

Mr Boyd...

Yes? Can't you see we're busy?

Yes, sir, but...

I'm Blood Group B!

I'm Blood Group B!

Dr Bird's told me

to be careful shaving.

She reckons I've got nervous eczema.

Hmm!

Trust muggins!

Soon as my op starts healing,

I come out in a nervous rash.

Look at me with these sodding cramps.

I thought he was going to fix me up,

get rid of the sodding cramps.

When I come round, what's he done?

Took out a couple of my teeth!

And what am I supposed to do?

Make a basket!

How is basket-making going

to help the frustrations of a lifetime?

When I was forced to give up teaching,

I had a mental breakdown.

And they made that an excuse

for getting rid of me.

But it was they who'd caused it

in the first place!

In fact, I'd have to lay my perforated

ulcer directly at their doorstep.

Then go on.

If you pushed me.

Suppose what got me through it

was the thought of my adopted boy.

My wife, er, couldn't have children.

We're separated now.

It never went too swimmingly.

Er, was it to do with her underneaths?

Womb trouble?

Oh, that sort of style, yes.

He's told you the tissue type's okay.

You can give the white boy

your kidney.

But the old man doesn't like it

any more than I do.

I don't like it, Johnny,

but we can't wait.

He's dying.

So he's dying!

One honky less. We should care!

You and I. Me from Port of Spain,

you from Anguilla,

descendants of their slaves.

I love Neil,

and Neil loves me.

We can't go on meeting hate with hate.

More hate with more hate!

Haven't we seen enough hate, Johnny?

Who was it that said:

"We must love one another...

"or die"?

Some white boy?

I'm so sorry.

Next time I'll knock.

They've found out who I am.

Oh?

Edward Loach.

Mmm-hmm!

Got a wife, too.

Not looking forward much

to her coming in.

She's frowning in

the sunlight, that's all.

She's always frowning,

me old mate.

I like a laugh and a joke.

That's only human nature.

She's a good woman.

I don't mean that,

she keeps a clean house.

But always on at me

to take the cure.

Well, it's your only feasible course.

Same with these doctors.

Half the time they're

telling you not to smoke.

Half the time they're smoking

more than what you or I do.

Gently now.

Oh, look at this!

All right.

Oh, these sodding cramps!

To think I used to drink for pleasure!

Used to be drunk days on end.

I'm talking about Shanghai.

Beachcombing, I was,

in the International Settlement.

Never knew a day's pain.

You ever been China way?

Never that far afield.

Hong Kong... Ship Street...

Where the girls used to hang in cages

outside so you could pick 'em out

before you went in for your jig-jig.

Sure, they never knew no different.

Half of them couldn't speak

the King's English.

Never been civilized.

Oh, some of them are all right.

Gurkhas.

Hmm, now you're talking.

Good little fighters.

Always give you the salute,

call you Sahib.

Aye, knew their place.

"Tikh hai, Johnny".

Bloody Rolls-Royce, yes.

Can he cure my sodding cramps?

I heard from my brother this morning.

Did you, sir'? Well done!

He tells me that he's just received

a letter, posted in 1943.

Go on!

Now, a letter posted in 1943

would cost...

tuppence halfpenny. Right?

Right.

Now the post office,

they want him...

to make up the difference.

Up to fourpence.

Penny halfpenny.

But they reckon that

it was underpaid by the sender.

So they want him to pay double.

Threepence?

For a letter posted in 1943!

And delayed by the post office.

Bloody marvellous, isn't it?

Course, he's going to fight it.

Only right.

Who wants a bottle?

All depends what's in it,

me old mate.

Drop of Three Star

would go down very nice.

- This patient?

- What?

- Want a bottle?

- No.

They always wake you

for a cup of tea or a bottle.

An overdose of the right drug's

all I want.

Whining Winnie's off.

Oh, there should be clinics

where one could get one's death.

Just like a library book.

I Tell us the same old story... I

The Eskimos let their old

die in peace.

The Eskimos haven't got

an Health Service!

The primitive race,

they could teach us a lot.

I was an engineer

in India and in Burma.

Oh, I was a sort of, er, batman

to the engineers down India way.

If you can help people,

it's only Christian.

Are you religious?

I might go to church to see

the stained glass. Otherwise...

I parted company

with organized religion

some years ago.

When I saw it was being used

to justify the activities of cretins.

Jesus Christ lived in a largely

unpopulated world.

Disease and natural hazards

killed off multitudes every year.

Kept the balance of nature.

If He came back today, he would

not say "Thou shalt not kill".

He would advocate mass euthanasia.

Well, who's to estimate

the value of a life?

Somebody's got to!

Seventy million British by

the tum of the century!

- Nurse!

- Nurse!

Come on, me old mate.

What's the matter with this patient?

Want a lie down?

Break the power of the unions!

Never mind that now.

All right, sir, all right.

Not enough kidney machines!

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