Other 'Health War' Controversies
The War of Jennifer's Ear now serves as the type specimen in British political discussions, for political rhetoric that leans on specific cases, as opposed to broad statistics, particularly in the context of debates over healthcare. Such foundations are acknowledged to be hazardous for politicians to employ in any decisive argument. The tactic has nonetheless been repeated on several occasions, at each of which headline writers attempt to formulate a new version of the 'war of' label:
- Mavis Skeet 2000 – A cancer patient died in Leeds after four times having surgery postponed by a lack of available intensive care beds. The scandal was raised by a newspaper, and resulted in significant government reviews
- Rose Addis 2002 – Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith criticised the government's record by illustrating the case of a 94-year old woman whom he claimed had been neglected in a hospital. A hospital spokesman insisted that she had been seen but that she had "a particular reservation about some of the nurses" and refused to let them attend to her. This was interpreted as a suggestion that Addis' objections had been racially based, which the hospital later made clear was not the case
- Anonymous 2004 – Conservative leader Michael Howard complained that a Folkestone constituent of his was told to wait 20 months for vital radiotherapy. The issue cooled off after he discovered that a clerical error had occurred – the wait was in fact scheduled to be 20 weeks
- Margaret Dixon 2005 – Conservative leader Michael Howard attempted to show, in the run-up to the 2005 general election, that the incumbent Labour Party was failing the NHS. Mrs Dixon of Warrington was cited to illustrate the increase in cancelled operations, a statistic Labour quickly dismissed as the consequence of increases in overall operations performed
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