Ban sunbeds for under-18s, government committee urges

The government’s Committee on the Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE) wants to forbid sun bed use by adolescents under the age of 18. They want this because there are around 370 cases of melanoma in the UK each year, and approximately a hundred deaths each year can be linked directly to sun bed use. The Committee wants to forbid it to prevent more young people from using these beds because the number of under-18s who used sun beds, increased in the last year. Apparently youngsters want to look good, but do not realize what effect this can have on their health.


I think it is a very good idea to forbid young people from using sun beds. Not only under-18s, but many people are not aware of the effects of sunlight when you expose your skin to this light for a longer period of time, or, if you use a sun bed. In fact if it was up to me I would forbid everyone to use a sun bed because it damages your body. I think people do not worry about it because the damage to your skin is not immediately visible and they only see the good result as in a beautiful tan. It is a great initiative of the COMARE to make people aware of the effects of sun beds.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/jun/19/ban-sunbeds-under-18s

How I'm facing up to the harsh reality of poor prospects and serious debt

Various investigations show us that students in the UK have difficulties with managing their own bank accounts. They do not save their money but spend it right away and the average student debt is £15,700 which will take more than 12 years to repay. Results of these investigations also show that students worry a lot more about their financial situation than two years ago, but they do not seem to take action. In the past few years people started to pay of their debts as soon as they graduated. This might be more of a problem in the upcoming years because at this time of recession, graduates have difficulties finding jobs.


In my opinion students should pay more attention to what they spend. Of course it is normal that you get a loan when you cannot pay for all those years of education, but I do not think it is necessary to have enormous debts with an average debt of £15,700. I understand that student’s life is great and I really enjoy it as well, but you have to make boundaries for yourself or otherwise you will finally graduate and go to work, but still have to pay for many years for you study.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/mortarboard/2009/jun/19/students-debt-recession

Belfast Romanians rehoused after race attacks

In Belfast, Romanian people who lived in the Village/Donegall Road community were attacked by racists. They threw bottles and stones at their houses and threatened the women and men that they do not belong in Northern Ireland. The men were told to be killed if they did not leave the country. As a result of the attacks, many Romanian families fled from the neighbourhood and were given shelter to at a sports complex where they could spend the night. The authorities are taking action and try to find the people responsible for these attacks. In the meantime the victims can stay at a students accommodation. But what the Romanians really want, is going home to the country where they feel welcome.


I think it is horrible that people attacked these families. I would like to know who is responsible, because then you might know if they had specific reasons to discriminate these people, or if they are simply against all other cultures except British culture. It is awful that these people do not feel welcome anymore and that they rather go home to Romania because of these attacks. They are really frightened, and I do not think the perpetrators realize what they have done to these innocent citizens. I hope the authorities will find out who did this and will take action immediately to prevent this from happening in the future.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jun/17/northernireland-ukcrime

Epidemic of marriage breakdowns overwhelming courts says top judge

The family division judge Mr. Coleridge is concerned about the number of marriages that do not succeed in the UK. In his opinion marriage is underrated these days and should be promoted, for the sake of British society. It is proven to be the most stable and enduring type of relationship. This is important to the adults, but even more when there are children involved. He understands that everyone should be able to make their own decisions about marriage and divorce, but he wants to warn people and inform them about the value of marriage in general. He would like to make couples understand that a good marriage may need a lot of work and effort from both partners, but is it all worth in the end.

I understand why this judge is worried about the many marriage breakdowns in the UK. In fact, in many countries this is an enormous problem. It seems that marriage itself has not changed, even though less people get married these days than 50 year ago, but people just deal with it in a different way. They do not respect marriage as much as before and simply divorce when it is not working out as perfectly as they had hoped. In my opinion couples should work a lot harder to make their marriage successful in stead of giving up everything when they are having a rough time. It is something we see in our entire society; people want everything to be easy and ready when they need it. But it does not work that way.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jun/17/divorce-epidemic-judge-warning

Unemployment hits young people and deprived areas hardest

If we look at the numbers from January this year up to now, young people, deprived areas and more men than women suffer the most from this economic recession. The Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Government Equalities Office found that 16.2% of 18 to 24-year-olds were unemployed in the first quarter of this year, compared to 12% in the same period last year. In deprived areas, unemployment rose to 11.3% from 8.7%, compared to a rise from 5.4% to 7.3% among the population as a whole. The unemployment rate for men rose from 5.7% to 8.1% which is probably partially caused by cuts in the manufacturing sector. The unemployment rate among women rose from 5% to 6.4%, a little less than the percentage of unemployed men. Overall the recession has cost many people in the UK their jobs.

Of course it is awful that because of the recession people loose their jobs. I do not think it is striking that more men than women lost their jobs, because in general there are more working men than women so the number of unemployed men will increase more than the number of unemployed women. I do think it is strange that young people suffer from the recession so much, because I thought companies would like young people to work for them because they are much cheaper. I do not know why it does not work like this. Overall, if I look at these numbers, I am not so worried yet. These are numbers of the first quarter of this year so there could be major changes during the other nine months in 2009. I understand that people are worried about the consequences of this recession, but I personally believe that everyone is overreacting.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/jun/17/unemployment-young-people

'Ello 'ello 'ello. Blogging detective unmasked

Detective Constable Richard Horton, a police officer of the Lancashire Police, was recently unmasked. He kept a blog, where he called himself Jack Night. At this webpage he wrote about all kinds of topics and news items, but he also gave his opinion about police business. He won the Orwell blogging prize and was hailed on blogs and in newspapers as an unusually impassioned, eloquent and informed piece of frontline reporting. Horton was, of course, very satisfied with winning the award, but felt a bit uncomfortable as well because all of the sudden he got a lot of media attention and he wanted to remain anonymous. Unfortunately another blogger did some research and discovered and unmasked his identity. Horton went to court to ask the judge to protect his privacy, but he declined. The judge said that people that write on public blogs cannot expect privacy. The Lancashire Police is not happy about their detective’s unprofessional writing.

In my opinion it is Horton’s own fault that he has problems with the police department now, because he should have realized that you cannot be anonymous on the internet anymore. If you get a lot of attention, in this case media attention, there could be another blogger who would really like to know who you are and it is not too difficult to track someone down these days, especially for people who know a lot about computers and the internet. I do understand that Detective Horton regrets that he was unmasked but I believe that a police officer has a certain role model and he did not gave a good example to the public. Of course you can give you opinion, it does not even matter if you do that on the internet or somewhere else, but Richard Horton went very far with his blog diaries, too far if you ask me.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jun/16/blogging-cop-found-out

Suzanne Breen: defending journalists' right to protect sources

The Irish journalist Suzanne Breen is refusing to give her notes about the Real IRA to the Northern Ireland Police Service. She claims that as a journalist she should protect her sources and if she gives away her information, her life could be in danger. Besides that she gives the argument that she could never work as a journalist again because no one would trust her again. She will appear at Belfast high court today to fight this police request. Breen has been a professional journalist for years and worked for the Irish Times and the Sunday Tribune. She is a highly respected journalist, known for her professionalism. It is also quite extraordinary that she gets along with both sides of Ireland and reports about both sides without offending anyone. Many other reporters, friends and other famous people like actors support Suzanne Breen’s decision to not give away this information. They all signed the National Union of Journalists Petition to support Green’s choice. The discussion about Green’s decision has a larger effect then expected; even Amnesty International expressed its concerns about this case and asks specifically to protect press freedom and investigative journalism.


In my opinion Suzanne Breen does not need to give away information about the Real IRA which she received from her anonymous source. I think you can not really do your job as a journalist when you are not able to protect your sources and I believe that the police should respect that as well. I do understand that the Irish police would like to have all the information that can help them, but they should not try to get information from an innocent journalist who is just doing her job. They should try to find other sources to get the information they need. It is great that so many people support Green’s decision by signing a petition and writing articles about this topic to make the public aware of what is going on and how the press freedom and the job of journalists is in danger. I hope she will win the case and can continue to work as a respectable and professional journalist.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jun/11/suzanne-breen-profile

Police try to identify children in nursery case

One of the employees of a nursery in Plymouth is arrested and taken to court for making, possessing and distributing indecent images of children that were at Little Ted's, the nursery where she worked. Vanessa George is a mother of two and had been working at Little Ted's for about three years. The police started an investigation to find out which children were photographed. It is a difficult investigation, according to Jim Webster, who works as chief superintendent on the case. Most pictures are from children’s torsos and those are difficult to identify. The police keeps close contacts with all the families and children involved and got a team of police family liaison officers and child psychologists together to talk to the possible victims. They are working very hard on this investigation, but there is a chance that a lot of pictures cannot be identified at all. The parents would really like to know which children are involved because right now they are very worried and are still hoping that nothing happened to their child. In the meanwhile the police keeps working on the case, and Little Ted’s is closed to be never opened again.


First of all, I think it is awful that evidently these things can happen at nurseries. I do think it is strange that it has not been discovered earlier, because Little Ted’s had a staff of fifteen people. You would think that one of George’s colleagues could have seen her taking photographs. On the other hand, I would not suspect one of my colleagues of doing such a thing either. Anyhow, I think it is terrible for the children, but also for parents whose children went to this nursery because both parents and children are traumatised by what happened. I think that it is even worse when you consider that you can not be sure that it did or did not happen to your own child, or if it only happened to some of the other children. I understand that it is very difficult for the police to investigate all pictures and identify the children because their faces are not visible in these pictures, but for the parents that would be a great help to take away the feeling of not knowing what happened.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jun/09/child-plymouth-images

Scandal of the home-help firms failing Britain's elderly

Home care for the elderly in Britain is horrible and only getting worse. This is what the latest reports on home care in the UK tell us. The firms that provide home
care do not have enough employees and the ones they have lack of knowledge and professionalism. Some of them do not even have proper knowledge about care and first aid. Organisations that do not live up to the standards of this type of health care have two options, they can make a plan to improve the care they provide, or they will have to stop completely. The health organisations predict that if no one will take action now, this problem will get worse in the future because in only ten years we will have a highly increased elderly population. To provide better care, the health organisations need more money and employees. They say that they cannot get qualified people to do these jobs because it involves hard work and less money than a job at the local supermarket. They ask the government to find a solution for this problem and to improve home care in the future.


In my opinion something should be done about this problem immediately. Time is running because as the article explains, every year the elderly population will increase and there should be taken care of those people properly. It is awful that these people have been working for most of their lives and when they are older, there is no professional help to insure their quality of life. I believe that the government should invest a lot more money in home care and care in residential homes to guarantee Britain’s elderly a good life. I read in several articles that the government is making plans to get money together for health care improvements and I think one of the best ideas is to make it compulsory for children to take their parents into their homes to take care of them. This could work in maybe 70 percent of the cases which means that a lot of money could be saved on residential homes. Then money could go to families who take care of a parent or both parents to provide them better care than they would have had in a home care situation.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2004/may/09/longtermcare.medicineandhealth

We need more diverse doctors

According to a published report by the Royal College of Physicians, the number of female doctors in the UK will increase highly within the next ten years. Right now, 60% of medical students and 40% of doctors are female. They expect that by 2013 most GPs will be women and in hospitals more and more women will enter the work field. This could result in several problems. First of all, all 60% of female medical students will most likely choose specialties like General Practice, psychiatry and public health. This means that there can become a shortage of other doctors in departments like surgery and cardiology. Another problem can be that men do not feel comfortable with a female doctor, but they simply have no choice because there are only a few male doctors. There is also still a problem with the typical doctor’s image. If you ask anyone to describe a typical, trustworthy doctor, they will probably describe a middle aged male with glasses and grey hair. This means that the image of a good doctor needs to be modernized because there will be more and more female doctors in hospitals.

In my opinion it is not a really big issue that the number of female doctors is increasing. I do believe that men and women have different qualities, also in their profession. But I do not think that men or women are better doctors. This means that if most doctors are female, there should not be any difference with years before when we had more male doctors. I understand that it could be a problem that we will have a lot more psychiatrists than surgeons in ten years. But on the other hand, I think there will always be men as well that choose this profession in the future, even when there are more women that does not mean that there will be women only. If it would really be a problem that there are not enough diverse doctors, universities could promote specific studies like cardiology and surgery to attract more female students.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/03/nhs-doctors-women-diverse

Help all of us towards a death with dignity

In the UK, the General Medical Council is holding a conference about the treatment of patients that are dying. The GMC wants to revise their policy for this kind of treatment because recently a man called Leslie Burke, took the Council to court because he did not agree with the doctors’ policy. The GMC thinks that end-of-life care is very important and therefore organized a conference about this subject. They would like to hear the opinions of as many people as possible on end-of-life care to make this type of care as sufficient as possible and to make the patient feel comfortable until the very end of his life. This can be by treating the patient until the end if the patient wants to, or just to prevent the patient from having pain in the last days of his life but not treating him for his disease anymore. The Council hopes to have a well-balanced policy after the conference.

I think that it is a good idea to take a critical look at hospital policies for end-of-life care. Every patient should be respected and taken care of in the best possible way, also when a patient is going to die and there is no treatment possible. To improve this care, they could respect the wishes of the patients more. After all, it should not be allowed that a doctor can decide whether you should live a little longer or if you should stop all treatment. I believe a doctor should give advice to the patient and give him enough information and then let the patient decide what he wants. If the patient is not in a condition to make this decision himself, the family should be informed and they should be allowed to decide what to do, possibly together with the doctor. This already happens in hospitals, but I think the patient should have a bigger role in making these decisions.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/joepublic/2009/jun/03/gmc-end-of-life-care

MMR jab should be compulsory for all children starting school

The health minister of Wales is considering to make vaccinations for measles, mumps and rubella (also called the MMR vaccine) compulsory before children start school. There is a discussion about this because at this moment Wales experiences the largest outbreak of measles since the MMR vaccine was introduced 20 years ago. Recent research results show that a quarter of the Welsh children under the age of five did not get vaccinated for all three diseases, which means that if it was made compulsory it would prevent many children from getting ill. The minister of health is now looking at the legal issues because preventing unimmunized children form starting school could be seen as taking away their right to get education.


In my opinion the minister of health should not make vaccinations compulsory if children want to attend school. All children have the right to go to school and you are denying them this right by telling them to get a vaccination first. There could be parents that doubt the effect of vaccination and therefore decide not to get their children vaccinated, but there are also people that are against vaccination because of religious reasons. I would like to know what the governments’ solution would be for this issue. I do think that it is a good idea to get as much children vaccinated as possible to prevent many children from getting ill, but I would suggest to the government that they should invest in giving parents more information about the effects and benefits of vaccination. This will result in more vaccinations in general but does not affect the right to education.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/jun/03/mmr-jab-compulsory-schoolchildren

Boom time for tutors

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article6301150.ece

Tutors almost can not handle it; many pupils or their parents ask for a private tutor at this time of the school year to get the highest marks. And these pupils aren't just state school pupils either. It turns out that especially private school pupils get a private tutor to help them. This is strange, because these parents already pay a lot of money to get the best education for their child and now they also have to pay for a tutor for their child to make sure that the pupils' grades will be sufficient. It is mainly a consequence of competition, because parents do not want to stay behind when they see that another pupils' parents get him or her a private tutor. They do not want their child to get better grades than their own child and that is why they get a private tutor as well. Some parents complained about this situation, but others simply think that if they have to pay a lot of money for their children's education anyway, it does not matter that they have to pay just a little more. As long as that guarantees that their child will graduate succesfully.

In my opinion it is strange that private school pupils really need the extra help to get higher marks. These private schools are supposed to be the best schools possible, and that is why parents pay so much money for this type of education. But clearly the education is not that good, because the marks are not high enough. The fact that parents really push their children to achieve as much as possible, is not very useful, in my opinion. Children have to go to school every day, and because they do not do everything perfectly, they have a private tutor as well after school hours! I believe that children should have more free time to do whatever they like. The English school system, in this case the private schools, are way too competitive. It is all about high marks and not about the developement of the child. I do not think it is a bad idea that children who need some extra help, get a private tutor. But it is not relevant for pupils that do not really need it, but just get extra education to get an A+ instead of an A.

Private schools hit by recession as parents look to the state sector

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article6269530.ece

Because of the economic crisis, many private schools in Britain are closing their doors because their pupils go to the state schools. Parents choose to spend less money on education for their children because of the less money that they can spend. This change in the education system has severe consequences for all schools in the country. It is not only a problem for the private schools that have to close and fire their employees, it is also impossible to give all the children that come from private schools, a place at state schools in the country.

In my opinion it is very difficult to solve this problem. It is highly unlikely that the economic crisis will be over soon, meaning that after the summer this problem will be even bigger than it is now because many parents want their children to go to another school at the beginning of the school year. A solution could be that they re-open the private schools as public schools with the same teachers they already had. This will make sure that all pupils can receive education. The difficulty of this idea is, that probably all children from public schools will try to go to these re-opened schools because they have private school qualified teachers. Anyhow, I think that the government should work hard on a solution because every child deserves education and right now, there are not enough places at public school to cover all children.