To feel guilty every time I use the NHS?

[Placeanditspatrons]

I hate having to use them for anything as they are so stretched at the moment and I'm a sahm currently so not even contributing anything, although dh is a higher rate tax payer I suppose.

I have type 1 diabetes and the last twelve months or so I've felt so bad about it that I've stopped testing my blood sugar as much and have been eating less to try and conserve the insulin.
I have to call for a prescription today. It just feels so entitled. I can't explain it really. Every time I have to use the service I feel like I'm taking valuable resources away from those who need them.

If I'm ever ill I just wait it out and hope for the best.

Is it weird to feel like this?

Please don't fall into this trap. I have a long term chronic condition too, MS. I learned the hard way that the NHS , in part, relies on people not making any noise when they are ill. I had to fight for decent care for my late Mum. I was THAT daughter on the phone every day. No one did it for me at the start of my illness and we suffered unnecessarily as a family because of it. I was too poorly and scared to fight for myself.
I vowed that if a loved one of mine ever needed me to go up to bat for them, and I could do it, I would.
If I hadn't, things would've drifted horribly for my Mum; we would have had little or no attention and she wouldn't have had decent care.

If you really want to help the NHS, OP, cancel your private health insurance. The more affluent people remove themselves from the state system, the easier it is for our venal, self-serving, BUPA-shareholding ruling class to make the case for private/insurance-funded healthcare as being the way forward, and the more it becomes a de facto two-tier system, where the NHS only provides crap emergency care for those least well placed to complain and campaign.

You aren't a waste, it's important that you manage your condition correctly. Restricting your diet wont help forever, the only people that should be ashamed are the ones who take up valuable space because they are drunk!

And on a different note, if you have T1DM, you really shouldn't mess about with your regimen in this way. Not eating is a particularly worrying thing to be doing. I think you should talk your feelings through with your GP or diabetes nurse.

I understand. I have stage IV cancer. It's incurable, but treatable. Sometimes I wonder why they're spending money on keeping me alive. What's the point? But then I think if I followed that argument through then what's the point in keeping anyone alive? The NHS is there to look after all of us. That's the whole reason it exists. Everyone is entitled to the same care whatever their financial situation. Personally I think that's fantastic, though I know some people think people should just go without healthcare if they can't afford it

I once had to do a government training thing on taxes. It was quite interesting. None of us pays anyone else's salary. If you think about everything that our taxes have to pay for, few people are covering their own bill, let alone subsidising anyone else. Lots of it comes from taxes on businesses and whatnot.

You are just as deserving of care as anyone else. Yes, some people do waste NHS resources. But you have a genuine need so you are not one of those people. If you want to help then why not get involved with campaigning to protect our NHS?

The constant messages from the government bleating that the NHS is underfunded is pure political propaganda, meant to make you feel this way. It's underfunded because the government is a collection of under-educated, callous, backward thinking, out of touch, rightwing ideologues who want it that way because they want to sell it to their friends who will then sell the pols shares in the private companies, cheap. The same bunch of ideologues also believes in the long-disproven neolib theory of trickledown economics and not the fair and workable system of progressive taxation that any enlightened society should have.

Please don't feel guilty, there's absolutely no need. Your family pays its taxes, you are entitled to care and good health alongside the responsibility to take the precautions you can to ensure your health, yourself.

It's bizarre to me that you feel that way.

It is what the NHS is there for.

The majority of people have paid into the system, so should feel no qualms about using NHS services. Even people who have not been able to work and pay in, it is there for exactly that reason, to support everyone who lives here whatever their circumstances.

In the nicest way possible, stop over thinking and stop putting yourself at risk by not managing your condition properly. You do realise by not eating properly/testing yourself/putting off seeing a doctor, you have more chance of causing deeper problems with your health therefore needing to use more NHS services?

An important point is the difference between using Nhs services, and abusing them.

You need insulin to control your diabetes, and good diabetic control for you will save the nhs a great deal in the long term.

Abusing nhs services is very different, and includes dna'ING appointments, getting prescriptions for otc medications when you can afford to buy them, and innapropriately using services (eg going to A&E instead of a gp, calling an ambulance for a minor ailment).

I don't know if this helps at all, but I work as a paramedic and this week have seen almost nothing but people who simply couldn't be bothered to take a couple of paracetamol/make an appointment with the GP/get in a taxi to hospital. They preferred to ring 999 for an emergency ambulance. One perfectly healthy 18 year old lad called us out because he had a sore throat. You are not a drain on the NHS. You have Type 1 diabetes and are entitled to (and need) the treatment for it. The better it's controlled, the less it will cost in the long run. I wish more people were as thoughtful as you, but don't sell yourself short.

the constant messages from the government bleating that the NHS is underfunded is pure political propaganda, meant to make you feel this way. It's underfunded because the government is a collection of under-educated, callous, backward thinking, out of touch, rightwing ideologues who want it that way because they want to sell it to their friends who will then sell the pols shares in the private companies, cheap.

Right on!

I don't feel guilty when I use the NHS and neither should you OP

I know exactly what you mean OP - I feel exactly the same way.

I pay 30% of my income in tax (not including council tax, road tax, VAT and other consumption taxes) and I feel absolutely terrible about bothering a GP two or three times a year. I use private healthcare (that I get through work) wherever possible, but you still need a GP's referral to be able to access private services.

We shouldn't feel like this - it's irrational - but I totally get you!

(By the way, you should read up on what proportion of NHS resources gets spent on managing Type 1 diabetes. It's pretty tiny. Type 2 is the real drain - around 10% of the NHS' budget goes on it.)

Cynara that's awful

If you use them properly to ensure your condition is stabalised then you could effectively be saving them resources.

I have nocturnal epilepsy and resisted going on medication partly because I didn't want to bother them and partly because of the side effects. I ended up having such a bad fit I was in hospital for nearly a week - they actually thought I may have meningitis as the side affects were so bad I even developed a non fading rash (apparantly a rare but known side effect of seizures). That used up a lot more resources than medication so now I'm taking it (thought I was sadly right about the side effects!)

Not unreasonable!
I feel the same way, don't earn much so hardly pay any tax, I feel terribly guilty for using it! I never really used it that much until this year, generally only a couple of GP appointments a year, but recently I've had joint issues and had physio so I feel awful !

I have complex health needs. I totally understand how you feel. But at the same time, know that you absolutely shouldn't feel that way.

As PPs have said, the people who are wasting NHS resources are the ones calling an ambulance for a stubbed toe & going to the GP to demand antibiotics every time they have a cold. (And in any case the bigger issue is chronic underfunding & general undermining by the government... ugh...)

With T1 diabetes it's so SO dangerous to do what you're doing. My mother had brittle diabetes. She did everything right but would still have terrifying crashing hypos, sometimes requiring hospital treatment. The last time it happened, when I was ten and a half, she didn't come home from the hospital. Have your children ever seen you go hypo? It can be quite frightening - though not as scary as having to call an ambulance. And doing the latter doesn't actually stop being scary. If one of your children were T1, would you let them skip blood sugar checks? Mess around with their food intake? I can't imagine you would. You need to look after yourself to be able to look after your DC - and you deserve to be cared for & about in your own right too, but it sounds as if you might not be ready to hear/accept & act on that right now.

Do you have a diabetes nurse you can access quickly? I think you ought to tell them what it is you've been doing & why; and to get some support with improving your food intake.

Please be gentle with yourself Placeanditspatrons

If you skimp on your diabetes monitoring and care, you are far more likely to end up either in hospital with ketoacidosis, suffer hypos which can be dangerous if you are driving, or have complications down the line needing extra resources and help.

By looking after yourself properly, checking blood sugars regularly and taking your prescribed insulin as directed, you are SAVING the taxpayer money that might otherwise be spent bailing you out if you don't look after yourself.

If there was no treatment for your diabetes, you would be dead. As it is, you are saving your husband the job of caring for your children. If you weren't around to do that, the state would lose out on his productivity and taxes.

I hope that helps with some of the guilt.

Sorry if some of that post sounded harsh and blunt! I didn't mean it to. Just pointing out that you are not in fact draining resources, and that it is in everyone's interest that you use the NHS to remain well-controlled and healthy!

I know how you feel. I am a moderate user of the NHS but I don't work, therefore don't pay tax (but I used to). I always feel grateful/greedy/apologetic/guilty when I use NHS facilities.

You are someone who needs the service. I hate this idea that you only take out in you paid in. It's solidarity supporting each other. Some of us need more and some of us can pay in more; some of us can do both and some do neither.
This nasty punitive anti welfare culture has seeped into everything and it's awful. Anyone of us who only ever contributed could just think well wasn't I lucky.