The ethos of the NHS laid out for you:
A WOMAN will be denied free National Health Service treatment for breast cancer if she seeks to improve her chances by paying privately for an additional drug.
Colette Mills, a former nurse, has been told that if she attempts to top up her treatment privately, she will have to foot the entire £10,000 bill for her drugs and care. The bizarre threat stems from the refusal by the government to let patients pay for additional drugs that are not prescribed on the NHS.
Ministers say it is unfair on patients who cannot afford such top-up drugs and that it will create a two-tier NHS. It is thought thousands of patients suffer as a result of the policy.
Better that she die rather than use her own money to live: equality is all.
15 responses so far ↓
1 So Much For Subtlety // Dec 16, 2007 at 12:06 pm
So let me get this right, the NHS doesn’t care if she dies as long as she doesn’t use her own money to save her life?
Left handed people die seven years before Right handed people. Time the NHS took action to correct this injustice. I suggest killing every tenth Right handed baby at birth.
2 Kay Tie // Dec 16, 2007 at 12:33 pm
“So let me get this right, the NHS doesn’t care if she dies as long as she doesn’t use her own money to save her life?”
Yes.
Let us now wait for a New Labour minister to say that the media are just arguing statistics on these deaths, that of course a single death is a tragedy for the family, but that equality is a goal worthy of sacrifice.
3 Helen // Dec 16, 2007 at 1:20 pm
One assumes Ms Mills paid her income tax in full throughout her working life and other taxes beyond it. I wonder if she could sue the NHS.
4 dearieme // Dec 16, 2007 at 2:33 pm
“it will create a two-tier NHS. ” As distinct, presumably, from the NHS that I use and the NHS that MPs use. Nothing two-tier there, eh?
5 JuliaM // Dec 16, 2007 at 3:37 pm
dearieme beat me to it….
But yes, there is something particularly galling about the actions of the health service apparatchiks here. If she’s getting free treatment anyway, as she is entitled too, why should they complain because she wants to add another (paid for) service..?
“Ministers say it is unfair on patients who cannot afford such top-up drugs and that it will create a two-tier NHS.”
I wonder when they will crack down on private security firms? After all, we have paid for the current police ‘service’ out of our taxes, so paying extra for extra policing must be a no-no, on this basis?
6 Mark Wadsworth // Dec 16, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Agreed. Vouchers for healthcare, say I.
7 Mike Power // Dec 16, 2007 at 5:47 pm
She wants to top up her treatment with Avastin. “The policy of my local NHS trust is that I must be an NHS patient or a private patient,” she said.
Make up your mind – Private or NHS. Doesn’t apply to the work of consultants though, does it?
8 So Much For Subtlety // Dec 17, 2007 at 7:25 am
JuliaM – didn’t we have a thread earlier based on someone in the Guardian criticising Californians for paying for special private fire protection? In fact it might have been Polly who laid into them.
Private security companies cannot be far behind.
There is a Science Fiction story somewhere about a society so keen on equality that the government paid for plastic surgery to make the pretty as ugly as everyone else. I simply point to the better health outcomes of the Right handed and demand a Herodian approach in the name of equality.
Tim adds: Naomi Klein was the first. The short story was Kurt Vonnegut. The Handicapper General.
9 JuliaM // Dec 17, 2007 at 10:13 am
“..didn’t we have a thread earlier based on someone in the Guardian criticising Californians for paying for special private fire protection? In fact it might have been Polly who laid into them.”
No, wasn’t Polly (can’t remember who).
But yes, the ‘thinking’ behind it is exactly the same as this dog-in-the-manger attitude here; if all can’t have it, no-one shall have it!
10 David B. Wildgoose // Dec 17, 2007 at 10:53 am
We already have a two-tiered NHS. Free prescriptions and greater availability of drugs in Wales and Scotland, and a poorer system in England because English NHS monies are sent as subsidies to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
11 Eva // Dec 17, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Carried to its logical conclusion, this policy means that if one can afford to buy any over-the-counter remedy to improve one’s health or chances of survival (vitamins, flu shots, aspirin, physiotherapy), and does so, one doesn’t qualify for NHS treatment.
12 Roger Thornhill // Dec 17, 2007 at 4:09 pm
As posted elsewhere I am not surprised this is being done “pour encourager les autres” from not even DARING to consider private care.
If they want to pick and choose, then we have a right to pick and choose if we pay the taxes for it, surely?
I suspect Sociofascists and Authoritarian enforced collectivists secretly want this kind of vindictive “administration”.
13 JuliaM // Dec 17, 2007 at 5:04 pm
I suspect they are beginning to make less and less of a secret about what they want….
14 andrew // Dec 17, 2007 at 5:59 pm
Next: two-tier education? Your kids cast out of state school because you hired a private tutor for some remedial sessions?
15 David Gillies // Dec 18, 2007 at 12:13 am
Acksherley the Vonnegut story was Harrison Bergeron.
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