Channel 4′s ‘This Just In’

‘Ryegold’s Believe It or Not’

(Written for Channel 4′s ‘This Just In’ topical website in November 2010)

A good day to one and all and a most hearty welcome to ‘Ryegold’s Believe It Or Not’ where my good self, Dr George Ryegold, will take you behind today’s hot topics in health.

Obesity is now the biggest health problem in the UK, so I was intrigued to hear of a new flavour-boosting powder that is said to act as an appetite suppressant by telling the brain that we are sated earlier.

Of course, if one is keen to be put off one’s food, this powder will be far more effective at mealtimes if used in conjunction with my ‘Listen Yourself Slim’ CD – from my new self-improvement product range – with recordings of Rory McGrath vomiting, breaking wind and reading erotic fiction.

Of great concern to us doctors is the lack of diseased genitals we are seeing. Indeed, the festering gonads of youth are currently upmost in health workers minds. We know they’re out there somewhere, but are not getting the treatment they need. So thank goodness for this new mobile phone app that can test for STIs. One need only urinate on a small device and plug it into one’s phone to receive a diagnosis. The phone can then automatically contact the local pharmacy for a prescription, inform loved ones of your infectious betrayal and update your Twitter account.

Mobile network O2 are on board, whose marketing strategy will include Sean Bean administering caustic urethral swabs to unwitting ‘Sharpe’ fans on a stand in Bluewater shopping centre. The stand will also boast a giant screen showing the company logo oozing chartreuse pus from the ‘O’ which is then expertly scooped out by a smiling Pay As You Go sim card.

Hopefully this will go some way to battling the mentality amongst today’s youth that STIs are a badge of honour – in much the same way as gaining one’s red or brown wings was in my day.

And so to the worrying news that taking painkillers such as paracetemol, ibuprofen and aspirin during pregnancy can lead to cryptorchidism in baby boys – a condition that can affect their fertility in later life.

This has lead to calls that women be advised not to take such medications during pregnancy. Further proof, if proof were needed, that women were put on this earth to suffer.

Cryptorchidism is derived from the Greek words “crypto” (meaning “hidden”) and “orchid“ (meaning “testicle”) although, in this instance, it refers to the medical condition of undescended testicles, and not to that wonderfully amusing game ‘hide the testicle’ so popular amongst the mortuary staff at Stafford Hospital until very recently.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that Stafford Hospital has long been a standing joke amongst those in the medical profession – a by-word for all things grubby and incompetent, as in ‘Hurry man! I’m up to my knees in Stafford here’ or, ‘Christ, I’ve made a right Stafford of that appendectomy’.

But let us not forget that it is claimed there are an estimated 17,000 unnecessary deaths per year on the NHS. Armed with this knowledge, the 1200 needless deaths at Stafford between 2005 and 2008 pale in comparison.

Indeed it is surprising, if not down right remarkable, that by basting patients in their own faeces, sending them home with ruptured spleens, having A&E patients examined by the receptionists and starving them they have only managed to despatch 300 patients per year – just 1.7% of all avoidable NHS deaths.

Now let us put these 17,000 unnecessary deaths per year into the wider context of the UK’s annual mortality of 1 million. Interestingly, this also comes out at the same 1.7% figure.

So it would seem Stafford Hospital is being pilloried for contributing 1.7% of 1.7% of deaths. That’s just 0.03% – a statistic for which they should be lauded.

That’s it for today dear friends. Your very good health.

Dr George Ryegold