Medical science is a wonderful thing! We visited the Royal College of Surgery – Hunterian Museum – on Saturday 17th 2026. Oddly, entry to this museum is “free” – which is surprising considering how the NHS is transitioning to the private sector. Today, ordinary people can either not access free life-saving operations – or have to wait years to receive the treatment they so desperately need. Meanwhile, the reason waiting lists are so long – and operations difficult to acquire – is because the surgeons chose to privilege fee-paying (private) customers – instead of the general public (who pay their extortionate wages through general taxation). Since New Labour reforms – NHS-trained surgeons operate on the general public between 8am – 1pm – and then use NHS equipment, wards, and operating theatres to operate on private patients between 2pm – 8pm (hence the long waiting times for NHS operations). The later generates millions and is probably why this museum is able to remain “free” to enter. The queuing procedure is rather like trying to gain access to a high-class restaurant – something we would never do. There is even an Eastern European “host” who dresses like a head-waiter and uses structured small-talk to entertain the queue. Waits can be long. The Museum is full of bones and preserved body-parts. It has taken hundreds of years of cutting-open and examining body (alive and dead) so as to develop a working logic. This knowledge has undoubtedly saved endless numbers of lives. Visitors should not be overly sensitive to the displays of body-parts in preservative fluid.
