I had personal experience of the hospitals at Halton and the BMH in Singapore. As military hospitals they were aimed directly at the specific needs of military personnel while providing care for the local communities. Indeed, my Malaysian Brother in Law was born in BMH Singapore.
The nursing staff were serving military personnel and the hospitals were run as military establishments. A soldier wounded in action in Borneo or on the Thai border would be casevac to BMH, receive initial treatment there and then be casevac back to a military hospital in UK. All along the line, those treating him would be fellow serving personnel who UNDERSTAND. The hospital staff in a civilian hospital may be able to provide appropriate medical care, but are completely unable to understand the personal situation of the soldier/sailor/airman. Military service is not an ordinary job, injuries sustained on the job are not the same as accidents (or trauma in the words of the medics) and serving personnel should be treated by serving personnel. The military hospitals treated the whole patient and were also able to provide for patients' families too, where the families of long term patients cpould be moved to MQs near to the hospital.
Gordon Brown, New Labour and all the huggy-fluff softies need their arses kicked. God, the supercilious twits make me angry.
