Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, the Christian season that is customarily a time of reflection, repentance and self-denial. It symbolises the 40 days in which Jesus fasted in the wilderness and was tempted by the Devil. He withstood the three tests and banished the devil with the words, "Get thee behind me, Satan."

It was on Ash Wednesday years ago that the then Bishop of Sheffield, David Lunn, came to see me in my home.

I had been seeking his help in my endeavours to put an end to the appallingly cruel treatment being meted out to some patients at the Charles Clifford Dental Hospital in order to cover up sustained clinical negligence. See the account of my personal experience of this. He had not wanted to help, but had not wanted to admit that he did not want to help. He had made several excuses first. Then at last he had had me to see him at the Bishop's Palace. I was shown into the library there, and waited a little while there, on my own, until he came into the room. I found it a forbidding room, with its daunting collection of commentaries on St Paul. I'd have felt happier with books about Jesus.

He had already checked up on me with Professor Eric Wilkes, whom we both knew and respected: checked that I was a person who told the truth, and Prof had assured him I was. I had told Prof that I was seeking the Bishop's help. At that meeting in his library, I left some further information with him and he later wrote to me arranging the Ash Wednesday visit.

He arrived in his purple bishop's cassock and stayed a long time - I forget how long. He said he would need some of the lords in the House of Lords to help him to deal with the matter. I had asked him to ensure that patients with agonising toothache, needing dental help, would not be told at that dental hospital (or indeed any other) that they were not in pain and were 'just depressed', without properly examining the patients' teeth! and to give the dentists a statutory duty to examine the patients' teeth. Mr Reg Dinsdale, the negligent consultant dentist who did me the most harm, had told me he was not going to 'indulge' me by having necessary X-rays done! (I have written about him in my short story, Long in the Toothache.)

So I set about getting some lords to help the bishop. I was already in contact with the secretary of a society - I think it was called something like The Human Rights Society. I had already helped her to help a guy in the North-East who had been so atrociously treated in his dealings with the NHS and was so sick of being ignored or insulted (but never helped) by the useless NHS Complaints Procedures, and by his MP, that he had gone to London to the Houses of Parliament and had nailed his hand to a door there! to try to get someone to do something about all the NHS cruelty. - He still didn't get any help... - I had talked about him on local radio, and sent him a recording of the interview, and it had lifted his spirits to know that his shocking treatment was at least no longer completely ignored.

I asked that secretary if she could help me. She said the society was only small and not very active, but it had several lords among its membership. She asked these lords if they would help and they said they would, but that the Bishop would have to introduce the matter in the House of Lords and then they would support him in the matter. When the Bishop had left me that Ash Wednesday, he had said to me that in approaching anyone about the matter after that day, I could quote him at any time and in any context (I remember those were his exact words) that he had investigated the matter and knew that I was telling the truth and he would support me in the matter. I asked him to write me a short note to that effect and sign it but he said that that would not be necessary; I could trust him to keep his word.

Excitedly, I wrote to him to tell him that there were these lords happy to support him in the House of Lords. I never heard from him again!

I wrote to him again. He did not reply. I rang him. His newly-appointed secretary had clearly been told by him that I was a nutter, and she spoke to me as though I was half-witted. Neither she nor he answered my letters and he refused to speak to me on the phone. I can only surmise that he had supposed that I would be unable to get any lords to back him up in the House of Lords and so had felt safe in assuming that his promise to speak on the matter would never need to be kept. And he had most shamefully lied to me when he had told me that I could quote him at any time and in any context that he had investigated the matter and knew that I was telling the truth and he would support me in the matter

On Radio 4's Thought for the Day this morning, the speaker was James Jones, Anglican Bishop of Liverpool. His talk was a paean of praise for the NHS.

On Radio 4's Thought For The Day this morning, the speaker was James Jones, Anglican Bishop of Liverpool. His talk was a paean of praise for the NHS.

I wonder how many hundreds of listeners were, like me, profoundly distressed by his message today. Bishop James praised the NHS and was especially commendatory of the fact that its services are 'free' - 'free' at the point of need. (They are not free, of course. They are extremely expensive, but are paid for out of taxation, rather than directly by the patients to the providers.) He roundly condemns the system in some other countries, of requiring the patient's credit card (to ensure payment) before providing treatment, but disregards the doctrinaire processes demanded by the NHS before NHS treatment is provided, e.g. here - or not provided, as is the sad experience, too often, of too many patients, including victims of medical negligence, and that includes me.

I challenge Bishop James to read of my long, cruel, shocking treatment at the hands of the NHS abusing its power and see if he finds that praiseworthy. How can he praise an NHS for providing 'free' treatment, when that free treatment includes the callous disregard that led to so much suffering and so many ghastly deaths at that Staffordshire Hospital? See here, here, here. How does a man of the cloth live with the treatment of hundreds of innocent children in NHS 'care' at the hands of Dr Andrew Holden? - See here and here. Why does Bishop James disregard the dark, evil side of the NHS? Why does he champion the powerful, rather than champion their victims? The NHS does not need his advocacy; its suffering victims do.

I have tried in past years to obtain the help of Bishops to bring about reform of the cruel system, and I have failed. - David Lunn, when he was Bishop of Sheffield, promised me that he would help, but he let me down shamefully. Similarly David Jenkins, when he was Bishop of Durham, said he would help, but did not. Other prominent, influential religious leaders I have approached have also passed by on the other side, allowing NHS cruelty and victimisation to continue unchallenged. Where are the Good Samaritans in the churches, with the courage and the compassion to do right by the NHS's victims and to work to reform a system that is rotten at its core?

I challenge Bishop James to come and spend some hours with me, that I can tell him more about the callous, careless NHS system that is my own experience, and that of thousands of his fellow citizens.