Some NHS hospital trusts are calling in exterminators on a near daily basis amid a plague of rats and mice at many ageing sites.
Data obtained by The Telegraph reveal that Barts Health NHS Trust, which has four sites in London, had 277 call-outs for rodent-related issues in 2022.
Barts is one of the capital’s largest trusts and is home to St Bartholomew’s Hospital in the City of London, the oldest hospital in England and founded 900 years ago.
However, the NHS trust’s “eclectic and often aged historical buildings” are leading to ongoing issues with rats and mice, it has emerged.
Fire all the power skirts running seminars on gender equity and hire some rat catchers instead. Hell, offer the power skirts the more useful jobs.
Sounds like a splendid way to get rid of the power skirts.
The Patrician would quickly work out a mutually acceptable solution with the rats, possibly involving the provision of surplus (i.e. all of them) power skirts thereby solving two problems at the same time.
“eclectic and often aged historical buildings”
Most of which are at least 100 years old, some much older – odd that rats and mice have suddenly in 21st Century become a problem.
Hygiene, operating standards?
Dear Mr Worstall
My sister bought a rural property. The previous owner kept chickens and ducks and rats, which remained on site while he looked for somewhere else to keep them. When he moved the chickens and ducks, the rats disappeared soon after.
I learned from a farmer friend that if you have mice, it means you don’t have rats – rats see off the mice. If you don’t have mice it means you either have rats or you don’t.
This may be of interest on gender pay gap:
https://www.facebook.com/reel/955906092130694
DP
“eclectic and often aged historical buildings”
Just an observation. And I’d include certain universities in this. Make a decision. Do you want to do what you’re supposed to be doing or do you want to be a historical preservation society? If you want to be the former, knock it down & build something appropriate.
BIS,
“Just an observation. And I’d include certain universities in this. Make a decision. Do you want to do what you’re supposed to be doing or do you want to be a historical preservation society? If you want to be the former, knock it down & build something appropriate.”
To be fair, much of this is imposed on them by English Heritage listing things. So you can’t go knocking it down. Sometimes that can even be a plaque or part of a building, but because it’s stuck in the middle of everything else you can’t touch it.
But deeper than that it’s a pervading attitude in the UK about turning the whole place into a museum. And look, I’m all for Avebury, Hampton Court and Bath not being knocked down, but there’s a lot of worthless old shite that should be bulldozed.
The useless power skirts infest the Personnel Departments of all employers, so there is fuck all chance of them getting rid of their kind.
I wouldn’t trust the power-skirts to do the job competently. The rat poison would end up in the canteen food. Not than anybody would notice the difference.
Just get some cats in. I lived for 20 years in an inner city house (with the usual inner city vermin problems) and three cats, never saw a live rat or mouse. Plenty of dead ones deposited on the back step.