Our health care system is a nightmare.
I won’t be voting in the coming general election. I would gallop to my polling station on a horse, or even crawl there to do so, (it’s not half a mile away), but I’m not a UK citizen, so I can’t. My family and I have lived here just over five years, and we pay taxes and national insurance. We also pay the immigrant health surcharge every year for each family member, according to the terms of our visas. However, we’re not quite there yet on the path to citizenship, so no votes for us this time. But I love the UK, very much and that’s mostly down to the people who inhabit it (that includes you!) so forgive me if I weigh in.
Strange to think now, but we were planning to leave the UK and return to the US after we’d been here a couple of years. We missed our friends and the wild nature of southern California. But then our youngest son was diagnosed with a brain tumour, and his treatment began at Great Ormond Street hospital in London. While its staff were the experts in treating his cancer, my wife and I devoted our attention to keeping the family together and making sure Henry and his brothers could be together as much as possible, be it in his hospital room or on the odd visit Henry could make to our house.