Horror Story 1: The Hospital

Do you like horror stories?

Well it's bad news for you if you don't, because you're about to live in one.

What happens once the hospital is finally built in 20-30 years and at a cost of £20 billion putting us, our children and our children's children into debt for the rest of our lives? What will life look like then?

Well nightmare scenario number 1 is that on its very first day of opening, the shiny new doors of our shiny new hospital will open up, patients will enter and be greeted with a smiling receptionist who will say

"Welcome to our very expensive and very shiny new hopsital. Unfortunately, we can't treat you because we don't have any doctors or nurses. We turned around to them and said 'Sorry we can't pay because we've spent all our money on the hospital.' And they said 'That's fine. We'll just go to America or Switzerland or wherever else will be able to afford to pay us'. However the good news is that we do hourly tours to show how shiny new and clean our new hospital because it's certainly clean of patients, doctors and nurses. By the way, the politicians and civil servants who are responsible for this mess have all taken their money and have followed the doctors and nurses off the island"

Nightmare scenario Number 2:The hospital is finished and the Chief Minister then turns around and says "Because it cost us about £800 million and counting and we can't afford to pay it back, the hospital won't be open to the public. You will now have to get health insurance IN ADDITION to your taxes in order to be treated here". And we are instantly transported to America where Jersey citizens will be dying on the streets whilst rich clients are specially flown in on private jets

Nightmare scenariio number 3: what if it's like the police station where they build it and discover it's too small and have to build another building nearby at an undisclosed figure?

Nightmare scenario number 4: What if it's like the incinerator where we paid £160 million for a standard design only to have to pay extra money when it turned out that the square chutes needed to be round? How much did that cost us? How more times has that happened that I don't know about? Oh no one is saying, strange that

Nightmare scenario number 5: What if it's like the airport that was originally only going to cost £8 million then cost 4 times more to actually make and has cost us money every year since for the last 25 years? How much did it cost to replace the shiny roof that blinded pilots on landing? How much did that enormous watch tower cost - you know the one you hardly ever see because it's permanently shrouded in fog?

Has there ever been a building constructed by the states that has ever worked first time without additional costs? And they're now telling us that it is now going to cost closer to £800 million or 167% more than originally estimated. That's an average increase of £62.5 million for each of the 8 years we've been discussing it and they're blaming this on you for delaying them. So which one of you was it commissioned all of those expensive reports? Now according to the BBC, in Jun last year, it was only going to be £400 million. So, it's doubled in a year. I can tell you this: if they're now admitting to £800 million, you can guarantee that the real figure is a lot, lot higher. But they're saying "trust us, we know what we're doing" Does any of this sound like they know what they're doing?

Here's the absolute worst part: what is this hospital actually going to be designed to do? There's a lot of talk about primary care. Now is that primary care of an average population or of an ageing population that they so like to moan about. Because health costs increase dramatically at the end of life. Ecept that's a lie. They only increase now because of our approach to ageing. To be fair to the NHS, ageing is a new concept .

My solution is give the problem over to a private organisation that has demonstrated for over 40 years that it can deliver top-notch medical assistance at a stupidly low price. I am, of course referring to Jersey Hospice who year after year provide a quality service at no cost to the taxpayer

Oh, I almost forgot, I'm a consultant. So, Chief Minister please make the cheque for 1 million pounds payable to ....