Here is a super graph. It shows water consumption in Edmonton Canada on the day of the Olympic hockey final and compares it to the rather smoother usage the day before. A little analysis will no doubt show this is the inverse of beer consumption. Demand spikes are a common problem whether you are supplying […]
The Perfect Storm
Imagine you run a hospital. One of your responsibilities is staffing, making sure there are enough nurses and doctors. Then the country is hit by a flu epidemic, you are inundated by sick people, demand soars through the roof. It gets worse, your staff get sick as well, they take time off. Not only do […]
Brain Scan
Glasgow’s Western infirmary owns a £500,000 CT scanner (computerised tomography if you must know, though I am not much wiser). Apparently it is used to scan patients’ brains if they are thought to have had a stroke. Unfortunately it has been idle for the past six months as the radiographer who operated it left the […]
Running out of Doctors
The British Medical Association claims to have uncovered department of health data that shows that there was a shortfall of 3,000 junior doctors at the end of 2008. Two factors are being blamed for this, changes to immigration legislation that prevents people from outside the EU coming to train as doctors and also the European […]