DR MAX THE MIND DOCTOR: I’m voting OUT to save my beloved NHS

This week, I did something that will shock many of my friends: after endless researching and reading, I decided to vote for us to leave the EU.

I enjoy Europe and all its rich, diverse traditions and history. But, for me, the decision is based on the best interests of my patients.

I believe that the NHS is one of our nation’s greatest achievements. All the evidence shows it is the fairest, cheapest and most effective way of delivering healthcare in the world.

This week, I did something that will shock many of my friends: after endless researching and reading, I decided to vote for us to leave the EU, writes DR MAX THE MIND DOCTOR

But I want us to quit the EU because I have serious concerns for the future of the NHS — and the Welfare State — if we stay in.

Sarah Wollaston, the doctor-turned-MP who recently defected from the Leave campaign, argues that the NHS is reliant on a strong economy. I understand those concerns, but don’t believe that our economy will tank in the way we are being warned.

Besides, the NHS was started after the end of the last war, when the country was economically on its knees, so I’m sure it can withstand a few wobbles while the financial markets settle down.

There are two main reasons for my support of Brexit.

First, the money we contribute to the EU could be redirected to help sort out the financial difficulties faced by the NHS.

DR MAX THE MIND DOCTOR: The best way to stop suicide?

DR MAX THE MIND DOCTOR: I’ve helped perform abortions but…
DR MAX THE MIND DOCTOR: Cynical real reason the NHS hates…

S econd, far from what the ‘Remain’ campaign would have us believe, the evidence is that the NHS suffers from the EU’s open borders policy in a way that does not affect other member states.

British authorities are allowed to recoup costs for treating other EU nationals on the NHS — just as our government pays for UK citizens who are treated by other nations’ health services.

However, the truth is that we are owed far more than we receive.

In the year 2014-15, this shortfall was approximately £600million. It means we pay almost £14 for the healthcare cost of Britons who are treated abroad for every £1 we get back from EU nationals treated on the NHS. So, as is the case in many other areas, while Britain diligently plays by the EU rules, our fellow members circumvent them.

The brutal truth is that a health care system such as ours — funded through central taxation and which serves countless thousands of people who do not contribute — is doomed.

WHO HAS LOST THE PLOT

New evidence that the World Health Organisation has lost the plot. While thousands of Syrians are fleeing Islamic State, and an estimated 280,000 people have already died in the conflict, the WHO has launched a public health campaign there on the dangers of smoking! It is asking Syria to consider plain packaging on cigarettes to ‘reduce the glamour of smoking’. Bonkers.

No one denies that such levels of immigration place an immense strain on the NHS. For example, research shows that immigrants are more likely to have more children than UK nationals, and thus require extra maternity services.

Indeed, figures released last year revealed the repercussions of over-burdened maternity wards.

As a result of rising birthrates caused by record levels of immigration — as well as complications from more older and obese women giving birth — statistics, uncovered using Freedom of Information laws, show that 45 of 93 NHS maternity units closed their doors at least once last year. Women were turned away on at least 575 occasions, compared with 461 times in 2014.

Meanwhile, we have Remain campaigners arguing that we benefit from EU membership as the other 27 member states provide us with doctors and nurses.

Yes, the NHS is heavily reliant on staff from overseas plugging gaps in the workforce. Last year alone, the NHS recruited 3,000 doctors from abroad. Indeed, we are more dependent on foreign doctors than any other major EU nation. But the fact is the majority of doctors working here who qualified overseas are not from the EU. They constitute only 10 per cent of the NHS medical workforce — whereas those from elsewhere (such as India) make up 25 per cent.

This is despite changes to immigration rules in 2010, which have made it significantly more difficult for doctors from outside Europe to work here.

Moreover, I am deeply concerned about the long-term future of the NHS as a result of the increasing pressure it has come under. The public’s growing perception is that it is unable to service its health needs. If this continues, people will resent its failure and be disinclined to pay for it.

If that happens, it would start to crumble further. And, of course, this will disproportionately affect the poor and disenfranchised who have no hope of paying for private healthcare. Ultimately, we are facing a battle between two diametrically opposed interest groups.

On one side are a metropolitan, educated and articulate group who tend to benefit from migration (being able to hire cheap builders and cleaners) and who are not wholly reliant on state services.

On the other side are a largely poor, less educated group. They have no choice but to deal with the reduction in choice of school places for their children and to wait days to get an appointment with their GP, while their jobs are at risk from those who are happy to do their work for less wages.

This second group are my patients and every day I witness how they are struggling.

That is why I’m voting Leave: in a nutshell, to safeguard the future of the NHS.

Don’t worry, women, London’s new Mayor has come to your rescue.

Sadiq Khan announced this week that he will ban ‘body shaming’ adverts on public transport. He is determined to rid the Underground of images that ‘demean’ women by promoting ‘unrealistic’ body images.

This is in response to last year’s infamous ‘beach body ready’ advert (for a protein powder supplement) that featured a slim model wearing a yellow bikini.

Sadiq’s feminist gesture rather misses the mark and is incredibly patronising. He is policing women’s bodies and determining what is ‘unrealistic’ and what is not.

First, the model in that particular advert (right) was not underweight and looked fit and healthy. Indeed, the Advertising Standards Agency deemed it neither offensive nor irresponsible after complaints were made.

But there’s a multitude of unrealistic body images — skeletal-looking models — that are promoted in advertising. Indeed, the whole of advertising is based on promoting unrealistic images. That’s how it works. Women don’t need the Mayor telling them what is and isn’t going to upset them and protecting them from pictures. And what about all the images of men with six packs that promote ‘unrealistic’ images of men? Why aren’t they being banned?

If the Mayor is not aiming for low-hanging fruit and is genuinely concerned about body image issues, the real issue is that treatment for eating disorders is woefully underfunded.

Despite it having a mortality rate of more than 20 per cent — the highest of any mental illness — waiting lists for specialist psychotherapy are still routinely over a year long. That’s if you can get on a waiting list.

Surely, this is what the Mayor should be throwing his weight behind, not getting rid of some pictures of skinny women on the Tube.

True cost of ignoring Muslim homophobia

After last weekend’s atrocities in Florida when a gunman murdered 49 people in a gay nightclub, I know that — as a gay man — I’m meant to be defiant and strong.

Regardless of whether the killer was himself gay, as has been suggested, this was a hateful attack against the gay community. And, in truth, I can’t help being scared and angry instead.

Before accusations of racism and Islamophobia are hurled at me, Islam is not a race and the term Islamophobia is a misnomer. A phobia is an irrational fear, yet I think my fear is very rational. After all, gay people are being gunned down in the name of Islam.

There’s another side to the endemic homophobia of some aspects of Muslim culture that no one dares speak about. Pictured is Omar Mateen

Of course, I am not suggesting for a minute that every Muslim in this country wants me dead, but there is no doubt that Islam has a problem with gays and simply ignoring this is not the answer.

Earlier this year, Trevor Phillips, former head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, revealed his finding that 52 per cent of Muslims in Britain thought homosexuality should be illegal. Other polls show that nearly a quarter of Muslims in the UK want to live under Sharia law where being gay is punishable by death.

But there’s another side to the endemic homophobia of some aspects of Muslim culture that no one dares speak about. And it’s the kind of intolerance that breeds the likes of Omar Mateen, the Orlando gunman.

It didn’t surprise me to hear that Mateen was on several gay dating apps. His sickening behaviour can be understood in the context of ‘reaction formation’.

This is a psychological mechanism that occurs in people who have urges or desires they find abhorrent or know society disapproves of. Thus, they react in the opposite way to those feelings they have kept repressed.

In this light, Orlando is at least partly the result of the homophobic, oppressive culture that surrounds many Muslim people.

Any attempt to address the issue is denounced as Islamophobia by the progressive Left. I’m angry that our liberal sensibilities have allowed this heinous, hateful ideology to fester unchallenged.

Most of all, I am angry at the way that we as a society have let down those in our communities who are gay and Muslim for fear of offending the wider Muslim culture.