Should I have a say?

[Ryderryder]

So dh works full time but has some health issues. He needs an operation which hopefully will ease some of these issues.
I work part time and earn very little but I do virtually all the childcare, housework, laundry etc for our 3 dds. His income pay the bills whereas mine is really just covers fun stuff.
So dh and his brother have been discussing the operation issue and bil strongly feels that he should go private. The op is likely to cost between 10 and 15k. We do have this in savings (just) but it is still a huge amount of money to pay. I also disagree with private healthcare generally.
Aibu to tell dh that I think he should wait for NHS op. Obviously with the proviso that if the wait is huge this changes things. Obviously I wouldn't stop him spending the money if it is what he really wants but aibu to have doubts especially as private hospitals aren't always equipped to deal adequately with emergency situations.

This is a huge sum of money to spend if it's going to use up all of your savings. I guess it depends on how debilitating his condition is. Is he in so much pain he's struggling to function? Do you know how long he would have to wait to be seen on the NHS? Maybe, as a compromise you could suggest he pays privately for treatment to help him manage the pain while he waits for the Op?

I have a life limiting condition which has literally reduced my quality of life to zero over the past 2.5 years.

The NHS has been horrendous. I can’t fault the emergency care I had, but the closer to discharge I got the worse the care became.

It’s taken over two years to get to the point of even seeing a surgeon to discuss the way forward,and I have only just gone on to the waiting list for open heart surgery.

If I could have afforded to go private, I would have.

You can’t put a price on quality of life IMO, and no-one can know other than your dh or you to an extent what that quality of life is and how surgery will affect his future.

What is the difference in waiting time for him to have this surgery vs if he went private?

I agree that it’s something which needs to be discussed but if the money is there then there’s no contest IMO. You only get one life,and spending on a hobby is not the same as spending on life-altering surgery.

My husband became ill. He was referred to a consultant, but the waiting list was 6 months. His family offered to pay for him to go private for the tests, so he did.

He went to the local NHS hospital for the tests, and the consultant he saw was also an NHS doctor. The bill included the hire of the NHS equipment. This consultant couldn't find what was causing DH's problem, so when his NHS appointment came, DH went along to that, and the new consultant diagnosed his condition straight away, and got it sorted.

So, going private in my husband's case was a complete waste of money.

I'm worried that your husband would be spending all of the family savings on this. Maybe if he didn't have an expensive hobby, there would be more savings, so using some for this op wouldn't leave you without any left.

But, I get the feeling that you don't get much say in things that involve the finances, which is a bigger worry really.
Yes, you should have a say, obviously. You should be able to discuss your fears about using all the savings, without being told you don't care about his health.

Thanks for replies. Lots of food for thought. I do work but it's part time minimum wage with variable hours. It works at the moment but long term I do want to go back to something better paid. But I do not have the same earning capacity as dh.
When I say we can afford it just it won't wipe out all our savings. However our cushion will be reduced significantly and if we have a household emergency we would have to eat into long term savings which were to help with the cost of University etc.
My worry is I suppose that he will have a private consult first and will go ahead with op even before he knows how long NHS wait is.
More importantly all I can think of is the horror stories where people died because private hospitals are not equipped for emergencies.

I'd encourage a family member to go private too if they could afford and it had a chance of stopping the daily pain. I'd not want them suffering when there are other options.

He's earned the money so this is his decision. The op is expensive but presumably he's spent way in excess of the amount supporting a wife and three children so why shouldn't he be able to do this.

I don't know if he should go private. That depends on the surgery and how long the difference in wait is.

What I do believe is that bil should butt out of spending your joint money. He has much less of a say than you.

He earned the money so it's his decision? Bloody hell! Who took care of their children so he could earn all this money and have all the decision making for the family?

He really needs to find out exactly what is being compared.
Waiting time NHS. Whether he will get worse in that time and a realistic view of exactly how much pain he is in.

We have Bupa and really the only difference in private and NHS is the wait time. Same consultants, same hospital a lot of the time now as most private hospitals are taking NHS patients.

He's earned the money so this is his decision. The op is expensive but presumably he's spent way in excess of the amount supporting a wife and three children so why shouldn't he be able to do this.

Can't believe anyone would actually spout this rubbish.

I'd be annoyed at the lack of discussion too. If BIL feels so strongly about it he can chip in! But I wouldn't stop him spending the money assuming that the consultation with the specialist went well and they predicted a good chance of the operation being successful.

You need to be part of the discussion.

In two minds about this. Have had private treatment three times.

First time was a procedure that used to be available on NHS but no longer. Varicose veins that were painful. Went to a Harley Street clinic via work insurance policy. Great consultant, great facility, very organised.

Second time was when there was so long a wait for a test on the NHS they couldn’t even say how long the wait would be. Arrogant, offhand doctor who thought everyone in the world was beneath him. Nurses were lovely, but the organisation wasn’t very joined up.

Just paid privately for a test that isn’t available on the NHS. Waiting for results. It was good for me to be able to opt to do that test at all, but also because this is a chronic condition I’ve been living with for years and had almost given up on anything ever helping, it was really helpful that as soon as I got my nerve together I was able to organise and pay for the test then and there. If I’d had to wait six months or something I’d have gone out of my mind.

So I would say, have a dig about to see if you can find a facility reasonably close by that has a good reputation, find a doctor with a good bedside manner and also find out NHS waiting times. Make an informed decision based on the actual details not the generalities.

Unless BIL is paying for the operation he needs to keep his nose out

Agree

Why are people telling BIL to butt out. He hasnt offered unsolicited advice his brother discussed it with him. Some siblings axyually get on and talk. If my sister asked me about it and I knew she had the money I would tell her I thought she should go private. Doesn't mean she cant then discuss it with her DP. Seeking different opinions and talling with family members doesnt equate to those family members interfering

I think what the op is would sway my opinion.

How is his level of pain impacting on his day to day life and what pain relief is he needing to use?

If my sister asked me about it and I knew she had the money I would tell her I thought she should go private.

If my sister asked me about it and I knew she had the money I would suggest she talk to her DH about the possibility of spending family money on a private op.

And my dsis and I are extremely close.

I had private surgery for a painful condition. The wait was two weeks. The nhs wait to even be seen would have been months.

It was the worst decision of my life. Had I gone for the nhs option I would probably have recovered anyway. As it was I was left with life changing issues . The nhs have had to pick up the pieces.

I’m trying to think what condition you DH has that he doesn’t even seem to have had contact with an nhs surgeon yet? How can he be so sure that this is the solution and as you say, it may not even be successful.

He sounds as if the BIL’s opinion has somewhat sent him into an obsession about having the surgery privately and that’s not at ll a good place to be when considering major surgery as he won’t ‘hear’ the possible risks or side effects.

And you also sound as if you can’t afford it really. He should be asking his GP for unbiased advice not a referral.

If it’s a serious condition, undoubtedly the NHS is better.

Safety is monitomore carefully in NHS and there is generally critical care/emergency back up without needing to call an ambulance.

The private sector also has a tendency to overtreat. So, much easier to get private surgery for prolapsed discs despite the evidence being that after 12 months the PROM scores for those who had surgery and those who didn’t is the same. The advice is generally not to have spinal surgery.

Private sector is good for routine electives on generally well patients, such as hips, as that’s there bread and butter. Your husband is probably not having a hip done as he’s clearly still young.

£17K is a lot of money to spend if there are no guarantees.

A few years back, I had surgery on a disc in my spine. The disc had bulged, impinged on a nerve and caused permanent nerve damage in my leg. It took me 4 months to get back to work, I was that done in by it all. Less than a year later, still in awful pain, I had another MRI. Turned out that the repaired disc, along with 2 others, had bulged again. I'm now stuck on massive amounts of pain meds and have been told that's it; pain mgmt will not help. I could never afford to go private, but wouldn't it have been a waste of money if I had.

It's definitely something you and your husband (minus his brother) should take into account when talking about it. I think you have every right to an opinion on this.

I think that this needs to be discussed very carefully and not just jumped into head on. You also need to discuss what would happen if for example he needed a longer hospital stay and the bill was much bigger - or if you need followup treatment or physio etc.

Also worth bearing in mind that most private hospitals do not have intensive care if anything goes wrong - they will just call an ambulance and ship you off to the NHS - I know someone this happened to when they hemorrhaged after private gallbladder surgery and they had to suffer a 30 minute ambulance ride and have emergency NHS surgery to repair the problem

What is your husband's attitude to money, specifically decisions about how to spend it?

He is the main earner, he has an expensive hobby and he's unilaterally decided to spend £10-15k on private medical treatment without first finding out how long he would have to wait to have it on the NHS.

This suggests to me that he is one of those arrogant, selfish men who thinks that because he earns the money, it's his money (not family money) and he alone gets to decide how it is spent. He thinks he's doing his wife a "favour" because he supports the family financially, even though she's the one who's done him a favour by enabling his career, looking after his children and running the household - while also working part time and contributing to the finances. (Yes, they are her children and it's her house too, but she is still doing his share of the childcare and housework on top of her own.)

OP YANBU but I expect this is a deeper rooted problem than just the decision about the surgery. How would he react if you told him that you obviously want him to have the best possible health outcome but you also want to have a discussion about the options and you want it to be a joint decision given the money involved?

Also - do you and the children get to do expensive hobbies? Do family finances allow for that?