European Wafaa

Firstly I am sorry for yet another shameless plea for help, but this is a matter that I feel very strongly about - just as much as I feel about openSUSE and Open Source.

This is aimed mainly at British citizens or residents and those from an overseas territory, or a Crown dependency. So what am I asking help for? Well as some of you will know, the British government of the day decided to close down all the military hospitals (at one of which I was a patient) in the UK. Sadly the decision proved to be disastrous.

On their current tour of duty alone, 2 Para have sent back over 50 casualties back to the UK, and that many can not be accommodated in the single dedicated ward to military personnel at Selly Oak near Birmingham; when all the other casualties from other battle groups are added to this figure how can one ward in an NHS hospital be expected to cope? Well it just can't, this is not being disrespectful to Selly Oak, just fact. Individual troops are sent home to recover relying on over committed NHS visiting services to provide treatment.

There is a petition with 10 Downing Street to rectify this issue, but a lot more than 5000 names are needed for this petition, and quite cynically, Downing Street has put a time limit of 19 August 2008 for this to be achieved. So please, please help; let all and sundry know about it and try and get your friends and family to sign up even try your LUG.

This is not sanctioning conflict that our men and women are serving in, that is a political issue that the troops have little say in. They follow their orders and carry them out to the best of their abilities, in doing so many die but many more are injured both physically and mentally. Surely those that serve their country deserve the best possible care and treatment? Britain I'm ashamed to say has started to treat her service men and women as second class citizens, and this must stop!

Again, please sign the petition if you are at all able to.