What a surprise. The Financial Times reports that millions of
people in Britain are now turning to the private health sector to get medical
treatment. It seems that if you can stump up the cash, and grease a few greedy
palms, you can jump right to the front of the queue.
Many NHS hospital trusts, are now offering "quick and
easy" health care services, offering patients the chance to jump year long
waiting queues. Hospitals are offering hip replacements from £10,000, cataract
surgery for £2,200, and hernia repairs for £2,500. If you're struggling to get
an MRI scan, you can get one for between £300 to £400.
Figures show that 7.21 million people are waiting for NHS
treatment in England. Many NHS patients, are being told that they can bypass
long waiting lists, if they can come up with the spondoolies. A teacher from the North East, told the
Guardian, that she'd borrowed £350 for an MRI scan, and said that there were
posters on the hospital walls where she had attended, advising patients that
test results were 3-days for private and 3-weeks for NHS.
What a fucking farce. Successive British governments have been
running the NHS down for years. The so-called crisis in NHS healthcare in
Britain, has been totally contrived. Don't be fooled. Both France and Germany,
have faced similar problems to Britain with COVID and winter flu epidemics, but
have far better national health systems.
For years, it has been privatisation by stealth and through
the back door. What we're witnessing is the Americanisation of healthcare in Britain.
What is being created is a two tier health service where those who can pay, get
treated and those who can't, get relegated to the bottom of the queue, and have
to hope they can get adequate medical treatment. Already, 50% of dental
treatment in this country is now being done privately. Many patients, even
struggle to get a face-to-face appointment with an overpaid GP.
In America, millions can't get adequate medical treatment or
even pay for their medicine, because of the high cost. Private medicine is
about making a quick profit. It's not interested in cancer patients or those
people who have long-term health or underlying health problems. If you get
knocked down in the street, they don't take you to a B.U.P.A. hospital, but to
the A&E. Do we want a healthcare system that is based on profit or one
based on need? The more that people feel compelled to pay for healthcare, the
more we risk losing the NHS by default.
We should not forget that both the doctor's union, the BMA,
and the Tory government, initially opposed the foundation of the NHS. When Nye
Bevan, Labour's Health Minister, was asked how he'd managed to persuaded the
doctor's to support the NHS, he said, "I filled their mouths with
gold."
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2 comments:
The NHS is supposed to be free at the point of need. I know it’s not free because it’s our contributions that keep it going. But all things being equal, assuming that everyone is entitled to the same treatment, I do believe it to be deeply wrong and immoral to jump the queue just because you have the extra money to do so. Other people’s pain, their priorities and their lives are just as important as ours. We do have to take responsibility for our actions, but the government is responsible for the parlous state of the NHS. Remember, we all did our civic duty and accepted that lie in 2020, ‘Three weeks to protect the NHS’ - what a joke.
I` ve just read your piece on patients being offered the chance to queue jump if they can pay . Your article is spot on , and the British will sleepwalk towards it with their usual vacant expression plastered across their faces . I can see this going the same way as the Pension Age being raised ; in France they are out on strike against it , meanwhile the Brits respond with a shrug . Now you know just why I have such a low opinion of them .
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