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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to get a bit fucked off at having to protect the NHS?

634 replies

Santaclauswhosthat · 25/04/2020 23:19

This is a healthcare system I've paid into all my life. I don't think everyone who works in it is a hero and the vast majority of them aren't underpaid. It's ranked 16th in the world and has the worst cancer outcomes for any developed country. It's not very good. Nonetheless it's the only healthcare system open to me right now. But I can't access it. My operation had been cancelled and I can't get a consultant appointment. The GPs aren't seeing patients face to face. I've already had one tumour removed that was on the turn. I'm worried that I may have another. I have no way of finding out if this is the case. A family member has already died of covid 19 after being denied treatment for three days during which repeated calls to the ambulance service were made whereupon his mother was told she should only ring again if his lips turned blue. He is dead. Right now. The NHS didn't protect him. It isn't protecting me either. What is the point of the NHS, exactly? Most clinics are closed or running at half mast. GPs aren't seeing anyone. NHS staff get shopping hours and free food and fuck knows what else and we are all dying protecting them.

OP posts:
plainsailing01 · 27/04/2020 14:48

@Xenia “those of us who pay huge amounts of tax”

Oh give it a rest will you? There are plenty of people who have paid waaayyy more in tax in the last 12 months than you would have in the last 12 years combined and most of them don’t even use the free NHS services! They’ll most likely have private health insurance paid for through their business or work that they tend to use more often but you don’t see them moaning about it here. The principle is simple: those of us who can afford to pay more into the system help subsidise it for the rest. It’s how a civil society works!

Or would you rather we privatise all healthcare in this country and let people who can’t afford healthcare die like in the US?

Xenia · 27/04/2020 14:51

yes, I feel we lost the social compact - that we all pay in and all get something out, that we are as one in a sense. Instead the things we all got like child benefit, no university fees - all been stripped away so that we have a welfare state which is nothing like the way it was set up in the 1940s - whereby if you worked very hard and paid in you got so much more back - much higher unemployment benefit if you had been a worker than not etc etc. All gone.

I don't have private health care.

It is a very good time for us to think about if we still want the NHS as it stands or would prefer an Irish or German or US system.

Parker231 · 27/04/2020 14:56

we’ve had a huge amount back from the NHS - DT’s hospital birth, DS’s badly broken leg, other A&E visits, children’s vaccinations, my well women’s appointments, various GP’s appointments over the years.

DH and I are both higher rate tax payers but the UK isn’t a pay by use so a portion of our tax funds the NHS amongst other public services. We didn’t use state schools but that’s our choice.

andhessixfeetten · 27/04/2020 14:58

If I recall rightly higher earners pay less tax as a proportion of income?

Parker231 · 27/04/2020 14:59

@Xenia - the US health care system is a disaster unless you have a well paid job or loads of money. DSil and her family live in the US and luckily have employer benefits but still pay large monthly premiums.

Many in the US have little or no health care and many others have to decide whether they can afford the co/pay or prescriptions they need.

TriangleBingoBongo · 27/04/2020 15:01

If I recall rightly higher earners pay less tax as a proportion of income?

I’m interested in the rationale behind this?

healthylifestylee · 27/04/2020 15:05

I'm underpaid
I can't get to the shops at the times made available because I need to get to work.
I've been one of the few departments needed during the pandemic and my phone has rang off the hook since this started. I have voicemails of people shouting at me then demanding I call them back.
I haven't had a lunch break or tea break since this started and have spent my whole day at my desk glued to my phone because I can't do anything else.
The gps and nurses where I work are handling as much over the phone as they can. This protects you as much as it protects them. They will invite people in if needed and nurses don't really have much of a choice.
We had to work over the bank holiday so didn't even get a chance then to spend time with our families.
I'm now able to be on leave for a short period of time and I see posts like this.

It's a pandemic. No one is having fun. Especially not people working in the NHS.

sleepingpup · 27/04/2020 15:19

May be then we should get hero of the nation stickers or a bunch of flowers for not wasting the resources of the NHS and for paying X amount of tax. I

Xenia love there is no medal for not needing the NHS.

My husband and his melanoma has been 'wasting resources' for several years so we have never had to wrestle with idea as you clearly do, that we haven't had our money's worth.

But of course that isn't how it works anyway.

Your £1,000s in taxes, have contributed to the A&E that is ready and waiting for you. You don't acknowledge that but that is where an ambulance will take you if you have an accident tomorrow. And the rest.

Don't dispute the NHS could be funded differently/better and better organised. But actually that isn't just what your posts are saying.

susandelgado · 27/04/2020 15:36

So sorry for your loss OP
As it happens I agree with you. The Nhs couldn't wait to discharge my MIL when she still had pneumonia, so they could gear up for covid. She was sent to a second rate nursing home which she hated. She had no choice in the matter. She hadn't seen her family for six weeks and yesterday she died alone, I wonder how that felt? . I am hurt and angry on her behalf Angry

cybercontroller · 27/04/2020 15:41

May be then we should get hero of the nation stickers or a bunch of flowers for not wasting the resources of the NHS and for paying X amount of tax. I certainly do not currently feel like a massive tax hike next year. Whereas when we all felt in this together, all getting child benefit rich or poor, my doctor uncle even got a council house in the 1940s) it was a different kettle of fish.

A sticker? People should be grovelling in the street at you for not getting ill and paying the tax that you legally have to. Us poor, fat sick people are not even fit to lick your boots.

Medstudent12 · 27/04/2020 15:58

@Xenia I am a doctor, I have worked in palliative medicine and I have seen women who did not have smears die of cervical cancer. It was preventable and truly heartbreaking for the women and their families.

Please please stop assuming you are not at risk. Please take up the invites for smears and mammograms, they are truly lifesaving.

I’ve also seen plenty of youngish people die of glioblastomas (aggressive brain tumour), they’re unlucky, it wasn’t their “fault” that they became sick and the NHS was there for them.

Xenia · 27/04/2020 16:54

I'm happy to make my own choices in a free society. I might well be at risk but I don't mind. Thankfully we don't all have to have the same views. At one stage the NHS had to change it guidance on breast scans as they were going more harm than good.

I have paid my tax full time without a break since 1983 (didn't even get paid maternity leaves) and I don't mind - I support a basic NHS but I am not happy if my tax goes up any higher next year as I feel I have done by bit with no praise and no thanks - in fact everyone thinks women are given money by men on divorce, not vice versa and all the self employed evade tax.

I expect every doctor on here knows the cost to the NHS caused by obesity and yet year in year out nothing works. If we said you pay for the NHS before treatment if you are over weight as well as you might well die of covid 19 that might be a good combination to get people to eat less.

TriangleBingoBongo · 27/04/2020 16:59

@Xenia you’re obviously intelligent and I read your posts with interest, but I’m not sure of the relevant of obesity. Is it not just one factor amongst many? Why is that a particular focus for you.

I’m fit and keep myself healthy, but am asthmatic which developed in childhood and also partake in sports deemed as high risk. which I suppose contribute to keeping me healthy, but could also lead to me needing the NHS. Am I deserving?

sleepingpup · 27/04/2020 17:00

Thankfully we don't all think the same.

AnyFucker · 27/04/2020 17:05

In my experience, people so fixated on other people's weight often are suffering from an eating disorder themselves.

BunnytheHoneyBee · 27/04/2020 17:12

I’m not sure why obesity is relevant @Xenia I see your point but I don’t agree. There is also an underlying assumption that people who are obese are so by choice and that’s not necessarily the case. What about those who are obese due to another health condition which has contributed to their weight. What if no one can really say why I’m a size 8, my sister a 10 and another a 14, even when we all lived in the same house and ate the same. What about smokers? Should everyone who has ever smoked by denied cancer treatment in case they brought it on themselves? In fact should everyone be screened before they are given any treatment whatsoever in case they are overweight, underweight, have smoked or taken any kind of recreational drugs, sexual health screening and diet check in case they brought any said health issue on themselves? It doesn’t work does it?

I’m a higher tax payer and I’m thankful that I have not had to use the NHS more in my life so far but please don’t assume you are above anything as none of us know what the future holds.

cybercontroller · 27/04/2020 17:16

I have paid my tax full time without a break since 1983 (didn't even get paid maternity leaves) and I don't mind

You clearly do since you never shut the fuck up about it.

AvalancheKit · 27/04/2020 17:16

In my experience, people so fixated on other people's weight often are suffering from an eating disorder themselves.

Either than or sending subliminal messages to young adults.

AvalancheKit · 27/04/2020 17:17

Either that.

boringrobot · 27/04/2020 17:29

Totally agree Xenia. Too many people abuse the NHS because they don't pay any tax and think it's free, like people who go to A&E for minor issues that they could see a GP about. If people were charged a small amount for appointments a lot of the waste would be sorted out.

Parker231 · 27/04/2020 17:54

I don’t see the link between non taxpayers ( those unemployed, students, children, pensioners below the tax thresholds ?) and attendance at A&E or their GP’s.

opticaldelusion · 27/04/2020 18:19

Too many people abuse the NHS because they don't pay any tax

You mean young children then? Because I can't think of any adult who doesn't pay tax in some form.

BunnytheHoneyBee · 27/04/2020 18:20

If people were charged a small amount for appointments a lot of the waste would be sorted out.

I do agree with this to some degree. I’m sure some people use appointments unnecessarily because “it’s free”.

opticaldelusion · 27/04/2020 18:21

If people were charged a small amount for appointments a lot of the waste would be sorted out

Yep. That's true. And the very poor would have even worse healthcare outcomes than they already do. Although reading the rest of your post, I don't think you'd give a shit about that.

Parker231 · 27/04/2020 18:23

Many people don’t have enough money for food, rent and bills, they shouldn’t have to decide whether they can afford health care. That sounds too similar to the dreadful system in the US.

DH is a GP - he has patients with appointments each week. It means the doctors can monitor mental health problems or other social care issues like abuse or loneliness.