This Shocked Me

but I suppose it shouldn't with the way economic rationalism is being applied to the most inappropriate cases.

This is what shocked me. A disabled woman in the UK has been denied access to overnight care in her home by her local council so she can be assisted to the toilet. She has a bladder problem that makes frequent toilet visits unavoidable but is not incontinent but the council instead supplied her with incontinence pads because it was cheaper. She appealed to the Supreme Court - and they dismissed the appeal.

What are they thinking? More to the point were they thinking at all? What they are saying is that it's fine for a person to be left lying in urine or even faeces overnight because it's cheaper. They would have had a case if the woman in question had been incontinent - incontinence pads serve a necessary function for the incontinent. That's why they are called incontinence pads - but she is not.

I wonder how these wise decision makers would feel if instead of being able to to take breaks during the day to deal with a call of nature they were instead given incontinence pads and told that toilet breaks were an unnecessary cost. Instead they should stay at their work place from the beginning of business until closing time. Pity we can't put them in that position for a month or so.

Addendum: Part of the reason I shouldn't be surprised is discovering an elderly lady, who needed high level care because she kept falling but who was continent, was being forced to wear incontinence pads for the convenience of the staff who then didn't have to come and take her to the toilet. I can't imagine anything much more humiliating than being forced to wet yourself like this.