Oh, why appoint a Manager
And sixty-seven staff
With clip-boards, offices and pen
To count the slowly dying men
And make a progress graph?

Ah, the dead are not so deathly
As they were a month ago:
A smile serene, a passing look,
An entry in the Doctor’s Book
Should please the family so.

They shouldn’t send the sickly home
With charges that are due,
Nor close the wards and sell the beds,
Nor put it down to ‘overheads’
As often as they do.

Please, Madam, do not die today!
We’ve got you down as ‘mending’.
We’ll have to fill another form
To meet the bureaucratic norm -
Our work is never-ending.

Such politics has had its day:
By methods brusque and brash
They glorify their targets gold,
Discharge the young and starve the old
To save the Trustees’ Cash.

Appoint a Matron to the task,
She’ll cap M.R.S.A.
Extinguish all the clipboard crew -
Their swift demise is overdue -
And she will show the way!

N.B. M.R.S.A.
Methycillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus

John Henry Pool
South Thanet Branch
United Kingdom Independence Party