Okay, the hospital thing is totally different. I'm saying this as a CS guy
And I'm saying it as an IT specialist.
I would rather they hire more doctors.
Although I blame the NSA first and foremost, I would rather hospitals not be vulnerable to malware hopping from point to point over the network using Server Message Block on port 445, without even requiring user interaction.
This involves sensitive medical information which patients want safeguarded and kept confidential. Equipment must function properly when hooked up to medical hardware. Emergency rooms must be capable of taking in patients and functioning at all times.
Hospitals form part of critical infrastructure. IT is an essential part in delivering medical care, including emergency care, to those who need it.
You have as many doctors working as you want, none of them can function properly without their IT systems. I'm talking medical dossiers, medicine database and patient profiles, efficient communication with other medical experts, operating medical hardware, monitoring critically ill patients, scheduling operations, patient placement and logistics, accessing crucial medical documentation, and so on and so forth.
Yes, it costs money. I worked in large organizations, they upgrade because they have to.
If they had spent that money instead on keeping these systems up to date, given their budget stays the same
They'll just have to increase the budget, won't they? The United Kingdom is a first world country, Jesus fucking Christ.
If applications don't work on Windows 7 but only in XP, Windows offers a complete fucking virtual instance of Windows XP running inside Windows 7 to accommodate.
Not that any sane software supplier would sell products only available for a system released in 2001, but hey, don't let your fantasy stop you.
Also, if they product in question is no longer supplied or supported because the supplier went out of business a decade ago then find a fucking alternative.
You can ring your peers in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands or Belgium and ask them how they get buy, I'm sure they can assist.
My God, this is such an insincere, artificial, complete bullshit argument by stubborn liars, and if you have the expertise to prick through that like I (and presumably you) do, there can be no excuse.
These cuts to essential services like policing and technical medical infrastructure stem from a diseased ideology currently gripping the U.S. and to a lesser extent, the U.K. and even other neighboring countries once regarded as "Socialist". That ideology that knows that a filthy rich upper class has emerged which has its own separate tier of services for everything - security, medical care, education - so they have their puppets and/or like-minded ideologues in government destroy public services so they can save on their taxes.