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Frame from Get some patients - Yes, Minister - BBC Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

Get some patients - Yes, Minister - BBC

12 videos recommended on HN
YouTube
Cited on HN 5 times, 2018–2026, never outright recommended score 0
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

Used as a joke for bureaucracy that exists to employ administrators rather than serve its purpose.

A classic Yes, Minister sketch in which the Minister visits a brand-new, fully staffed hospital with no patients and demands that some be found.

5 jokes · Comedy

5 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@belorn Feb 2018 Makes a joke
on HN thread Sweden tried to drop Assange extradition in 2013
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All part of government should operate to maximize their appointed goals within a specified budget. Should we let all departments operate without budget considerations? For road and rail maintenance, is it acceptable to simply let some problems be left alone if the cost goes beyond budget? Police do not spend infinitive amount of resources on all crimes. Those 10M+ represent assaults that don't get investigated, ironically also sexual assaults. How many future crimes, murders, rapes, or theft is the UK allowing because funding to stop those criminals are being spent on this single case? The Assange case is like the government building a hospital in the middle of London, employing thousands of employees and treating exactly 1 patient. Telling them to not do so is not to forgo having health care or telling them to disband government, but rather demanding that government funding is held to some minimal standard. Can we have a rule of law while accused criminals of crimes that has a maximum of 4 years jail time, who then can run to a embassy, be granted asylum, and 8 years later have the case dropped? Is that such an massive loophole? How many potential criminals should we expect to use such loophole over the next 100 years? My prediction: 1 if we count this case. [this video]
@kneebonian Apr 2023 Makes a joke
on HN thread European privacy watchdog creates ChatGPT task force
Everytime I see someone created a "task force" I can't help but cyncially think of Yes Minister and "The best run hospital in the city". Maybe I'm wrong in this case, but it often seems a task force is always used as a substitute for doing something For those wanting a laugh or a cry, I present "The best run hospital in the city" [this video]
@gustavus Oct 2023 Makes a joke
on HN thread My 82 year old mother found out that fraudsters had emptied her HSBC_UK account
That's not true my understanding is that the UK police are the best in the world at making sure you are tracked down and punished if you say something unflattering about someone on the internet, or if you happen to be walking around with a chisel, or god-forbid a pocket knife. And then from what I've heard the NHS is the best run health care system in the world[1]. 1. Best run according to this documentary [this video]
@db48x Mar 2026 Makes a joke
on HN thread Never Buy A .online Domain
Good! You are thinking! In principle something like this should be the right answer. (But we can simplify it by simply saying that we expect the hospital to improve outcomes, even though it cannot cure every patient.) But no, the truth is that this hospital was built to provide jobs for civil servants < [this video] >. The purpose of a thing does not have to be related to the outcome.

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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