Somewhat on topic, and high on the list of things in my mind right now: A family member arrived from the UK a few days ago. She has been terribly ill for months now, never fully getting better, always struggling to see a doctor. Finally managed to get an X-ray done, which resulted in a response of “take these antibiotics and we’ll do another X-ray in 6 weeks”. Well, she landed in SA and is now in a private hospital here. Fluid on the lungs, parts of it blocked by mucus, very high risk of severe infection, oxygen levels actually low enough that someone should have done something if they actually looked…
That’s what NHI-level care in the UK looks like. Never ever underestimate just how good (and frankly affordable) private medical care is in SA.
In theory the NHS is not privatised, though it is in trouble.
I am a British citizen by birth. A few years back I was feeling very not well, went to an NHS in Nottingham. I had to pay. OK… so I have been living elsewhere and haven’t been paying into the system.
50 pounds for a consultation. And that’s not with a doctor, that’s with a nursing sister. She couldn’t find anything wrong. Told me to go across the road to Boots and buy an over the counter cough remedy.
A week later I got kicked off a flight in Dubai for medical reasons. Eventually I get back home and go to Milpark hospital casualties. The doctor there took about 10 minutes to find what the NHS and a doctor in Dubai had missed: Pneumonia.
They have a quite different approach over there. Some of it may be considered pragmatic.
A friend in Bristol and I were diagnosed with prostate cancer about the same time. I got medication to shrink the prostate to a point where I might as well not have one, and underwent (I can only imagine) a rather undignified procedure in which radioactive pellets were inserted in order to kill off the cancerous cells. I was not allowed to have children under 5 or kittens sit on my lap for 6 months (the quack didn’t mention puppies until I asked, so I guess he’s a cat person).
Mate in Bristol is having his condition “managed” because NHS data shows that many men die WITH prostate cancer, but only a few die OF prostate cancer. So a game of probabilities.
TBH, the doctor in Dubai had a brief: To see that I was fit enough to fly to Johannesburg without dying. So he wasn’t really doing diagnosis, just making sure that I’d get home. If I got off the plane, through customs and then keeled over he had done his job.
The bad news hit this morning. It is cancer. It is in the lungs, in the liver, in the pancreas, possibly even in the ovaries. I don’t even really think we can blame the NHS for all of that. When you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras. When you have a bad cough, you think pneumonia, not cancer.
It is interesting though, how this was found in South Africa essentially within days, but the UK doctor was still non the wiser, sending a report just a few days ago saying “your lungs are clear”. This was on the same day that 1.2 liters of fluid was removed from her right lung.
We won’t know the full extent until Monday, when the analysis of the Biopsy is back. This whole situation sucks, and I cannot help but feel like the healthcare situation over the waters contributed to this not being caught earlier.
This is perhaps not direct family (although it hit my wife pretty hard), but when someone breaks out in tears and asks for a Bible… you know this sh*t just got real.
At all levels, one leader inherits from those that came before. In the UK Labour have, they say, and it probably is true, inherited a huge mess from the Tories and that is forcing them to reconsider some of what they promised at election time.
In 2016 the incoming US President had promised to kick start the economy, but all the data showed that in fact the economy was already recovering under his immediate predecessor, and all he had to do to keep that promise was to not intervene.
But I can argue this both ways. Sometimes new leaders make a difference very quickly, or at least appear to. EG the uMngeni municipality in KZN. Or, Liz Truss in the UK.
However, it seems to me that there is something else that overrides these two truths. Many years ago Napoleon won a famous victory in a battle. However, it was put to him afterwards that the battle was really won because of a bold, independently conceived and executed move by a junior officer.
Napoleon thought a bit and then replied that may or may not be true, but if the battle were lost it would have been Napoleon that lost it.
In the UK the thing that both major parties didn’t want to mention during their campaigns seems likely to happen - taxes will go up. Starmer will say that he has to get out of a hole dug by the Tories, and that may be true, but he is still going to have to take the backlash from the public and the press.
So it may be true that de Ruyter initiated some of the policies that are now paying off (though I don’t think so, because he told us all that Eskom were burning diesel like crazy when that wasn’t happening. So did he think he’d had that effect?), but I think it’s OK that the current bunch take credit, because we’d be mad as a snake at them if Stage 6 returned the day after the elections.
Also I like the cut of their jib. They don’t seek the limelight, they don’t make extravagant promises, they seem to be just getting on with things and speaking only when they have to.
Just to throw in a nice quote. He is going to find himself in the position described by Lyndon Johnson as being “like a jackass in a hailstorm. Nothing to do but stand there and take it.”
The application assumes declining sales over the period, falling from 185 652 GWh in 2025/26 (a decline from projected sales of 189 072 GWh in 2024/25), to 183 254 GWh and 182 668 GWh in the outer years.
And then the admission, this is because people move to solar to get a more reliable supply:
“Eskom sales are expected to be negatively affected by the gradual transition to alternative energy sources as customers seek to have more stable and cleaner sources of energy,” the application states.
So the people saying that Eskom is asking for this big increase to make up for what they lose to solar… are not wrong. Eskom is plainly admitting it in the application.
It’s going to be a bit of a process, not an event. The good thing about that, is it means there is time to adapt.
As I see it, Eskom has two options: They can aggressively invest in more renewables themselves, or not. If they opt not to do it, their business will shift to distribution (with maybe a small generation component). And that is fine. AdeR already set it up that way, with distribution split as a separate entity.
But I agree. Eskom’s generation side may well end up with a product that only sells on rainy days.
I know someone who does some legal work for Eskom.
The other day he mentioned the next unbundling phase is currently on hold, because Eskom don’t have the money for it, the target was for them to be done with the unbundling by 2027.
Before they can proceed they are now trying to get money owed to them out of municipalities, which is over R80 Billion.
Thought 1:
IF Eskom gets their increase 2025, will gas go up for like geyser heating?
Probably.
Still gonna try this gas geyser thing.
2 x 48kg for shower and two basins. Should last a year or two.
Thought 2:
IF Eskom unbundles one year, will the electricity price at that time, drop like a nut as the fuel price just did?
