It's Definately a Hoax.

There was high drama in the British Commonwealth country of Australia yesterday (3/8/11). In a plot straight out of the season 3 finale of the TV show "The Mentalist" masked men broke into the Sydney home of a millionaire and strapped what appeared to be an explosive device to the millionaire's 18 year old daughter. The intruders then left leaving behind a note threatening to detonate the bomb by remote control unless a ransom was paid. This was something of a metaphor for my grandmother's situation. After ten hours and extensive discussions with the British military the Australian police were able to free the girl. Today (4/8/11) they confirmed that the explosive device was fake and the whole thing was a massive hoax designed to extort money from the family.

So I guess that raises the question of why American is now one of only a handful of nations prepared to stand with Britain on the issue? After all I would genuinely hate for them to be judged by the company they choose to keep.

As for my grandmother two noteworthy things have happened today. Firstly the care assessor from the carers agency (Plan Personnel) visited to perform their own assessment of my grandmother's care needs. She was so disruptive by asking invasive medical questions and such like that my father told her to leave the premises. A instruction she failed to comply with. Secondly my grandmother's GP was meant to turn up to carry out a medical (drugs etc) assessment but instead she sent a medically qualified but trainee doctor in her place. So we agreed the the actual GP will attend to carry out that assessment next week. The big medical buzzword of this conversation was "the importance of continuity of care." I would like to say that this is such basic knowledge that it's on page 1 of the training manual but it's actually on page 187. However the point stands that this is something the British medical establishment have been fully aware of for a number of years but have chosen not to do in my grandmother's case.

While I'm here I should also clarify; The two Australian scientists who discovered that peptic ulcers were caused by the bacterium Heliobacter pylori were Barry Marshall and Robin Warren. Marshall infected himself with the bacteria in the 1980's and they both won the 2005 Nobel Prize for Medicine.