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

[Santaclauswhosthat]

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.

I'm sorry KingofKings what is your point please? I already have to pay for.private care in addition to the tax I pay for NHS care. I would happily pay more tax for a healthcare system to benefit all if it were better and more efficiently delivered. I am not prepared to pay more for an NHS system where staff on post natal wards think they may speak to vulnerable women like dirt - as one example.

What really worries me during the present crisis is that visitors aren't being allowed into hospitals when it's the visitors who for many years have been providing food and drinks and clean nightwear because staff don't or making sure their loved ones have beem given their meds/had drips or catherers changed, etc., and it isn't always due to understaffing.

YANBU

"My FIL was in at the start of all this and died 3 weeks ago - Not cv related (though again tested twice) but, despite him not making it, the treatment from the hospital, the medics, the nurses and the paramedics and ambulance staff was fantastic."
Treatment from all health staff should be fantastic. We should expect this as a norm so that it doesn't require commenting on. They are doing a job they chose to do and I think we should expect them all to do it well.

Over the years my DH's and my family have have some dreadful experiences of hospital 'care' and treatment resulting in written apologies from the CEO of trusts (only once they accepted I was seeking acknowledgment and apologies and not compensation). My DBIL and DSIL have had fantastic care and treatment. My friend has had fantastic care in ICU. There should not be such disparities in care and treatment between hospitals or trusts.

Think everyone will soon find that taxes really don't cover free healthcare. This is why the Tory govt hates the NHS.

Tbh, watching from abroad, I have been increasingly appalled at the state of the NHS and the difficulties in accessing essential healthcare for a long time now, before coronavirus. Mental health provision, for instance, is a sick joke. Waiting a year plus for 8 (!) sessions of CBT? I'm also hugely concerned at the trouble being stored up right now, especially wrt cancer.

I've also read enough stories of women in labour not being taken seriously with concerns, for example, to know that the attitude of 'don't dare to bother the NHS unless you're actually dead' that you see a lot of on here is institutional. There's a pervasive sense of there not being quite enough of anything to go round and encouragement of a sort of pre-emptive self-rationing.

And I wish people wouldn't keep assuming the only alternative to the NHS is the US system.

Sorry you’re having a bad time, OP. Your relative’s treatment was appalling, and I am so sorry for your loss.

The NHS has been underfunded for many years, and its efficiency has been much reduced by politically motivated restructuring. The politicians and profiteers are to blame, not the fallible humans trying to keep it all going. But your anger is understandable.

I hope you get the treatment you need and I hope it’s successful.

YANBU, I'm finding this idolisation of all NHS staff weird and uncomfortable. Yes there are some amazing people in the service- as there are in all types of job- but to hold all NHS employees on a pedestal isn't achieving anything.

Where are the perks, discounts and freebies for the people out there working to help out everyone not just a select few seemed worthy? Supermarket staff, delivery drivers, prison guards etc are all forgotten. Small business local to me have gone so far above and beyond to make sure that vulnerable people do not go hungry, round the clock deliveries, collecting other items (eg. A grocer offering to collect bread/milk or whatever from a supermarket and deliver along with their fresh produce).

My brother is a prison guard and has had to deal with several large violent events, MH emergencies, (truly horrific) self harm and violent outbursts and they get no recognition. It's gotten so much worse during the covid-19 pandemic.

If you haven't been getting annual screenings for breast cancer and cervical cancer it would be very wise to break your GP-free streak, Xenia, and make those appointments.

Too right. Are you anti vacc also?

My 7 minute GP appointment must have cost me at least £100,000 in tax

In the US you would pay your health insurance bill and then pay your doctor for visits until you had reached your individual and family deductible, and on top of that you would pay your nominal fee per visit of about $20. Then you would also pay up to several hundred $$$ for your prescription, depending on what it was and whether you had met those magic deductibles. An epipen would set you back about $800. An albuterol inhaler can cost $75. Insulin can cost hundreds per month and supplies associated with home diabetes testing might or might not be covered by your plan. They can cost a lot. Your premiums would be based on factors you have no control over like your age and whether you were able to leverage a rate as an individual or an employee of a large corporation.

Blaming NHS staff isn’t the way to go. They trained for years to serve us, they didn’t have to of course but I don’t think it’s a job just anyone could do. Doctors are highly trained in particular and nurses are definitely underpaid. It’s not the staff at fault, they’re just following guidelines and towing the line. They’re all regular people with families like you or I.

Blame the government who have continuously underpaid and totally fucked the NHS, especially the Tories over the past decade.

Sorry you’re having a tough time but your anger is directed at the wrong people.

I have seen my GP once in 15 years and don't drink or smoke or get sick

And that’s wonderful and I’d not begrudge you your health one bit. On the other hand my DD and I cost the NHS a fair whack thanks to a genetic disorder we inherited but there’s fuck all we can do about that really.

From the Times:

^the NHS in London has altered its official guidance to lower the threshold at which paramedics take suspected coronavirus patients to hospital. London Ambulance Service (LAS) has changed how it uses a scorecard called News2, which helps assess whether callers to 999 are at risk of deteriorating. The disclosure is likely to prompt questions over whether some Covid-19 patients became seriously unwell or died because they were not taken to hospital before the guidance changed. News2 allocates a score to vital signs including breathing rate, oxygen saturation, temperature, blood pressure, pulse rate and level of consciousness. Originally a score of five indicated a need for hourly monitoring.
From March 12 paramedics in the capital were told that suspected Covid-19 patients scoring as high as six might not need to be hospitalised^

Just gonna leave this here

Basically, unless the vast majority of people stop scoffing fat and sugar and binge drinking you are all screwed, regardless of the funding method of your healthcare
At least some common sense here!

I hope they haven't because some of you should be ashamed of yourself if you're knowingly replying so nastily to someone bereaved and scared that they have cancer
1 in 2 of us will have cancer at some point. It doesn't give us the right to be so unpleasantly critical of the one institution that might cure us, and indeed, cures more and more people each year.

It’s actually the health costs for older people which are crippling. We are living longer and there are more of us
5hats true, but it's not being old that is the real issue it's living with one or more chronic conditions for many years that is the main cost to the system, with the majority of these conditions to be brought on by poor lifestyle choices.

A functioning health care system protects its patients.No, it treats its patients. We are the main bodies responsible for protecting our own health.

Stop putting your own responsibilities on the shoulders of others.

The NHS is like every other workforce. Some great people who will go above and beyond, some that will do their jobs well and be present then some that are crap at their jobs with bad attitudes and can't be bothered

This is a new virus and behaves differently to other respiratory illnesses re pneumonia etc

But all critically sick or at risk of acute deterioration patients requiring hospital care need to come to hospital

I hear you OP. YANBU.

When the NHS was set up in 1948 there were 400,000 intensive care beds. Now there are around 127,000. There was a trial run for dealing with a possible pandemic in Britain in 2016. It was discovered that Britain didn't have enough intensive care beds and would struggle from a lack of ventilators and testing equipment. Something has gone wrong somewhere but it's a political problem it isn't the fault of the NHS, its staff or its funding model.

OP clearly needed to vent. Let's leave her be.

Classic wind them up and watch them spin here. Well played OP.

And I wish people wouldn't keep assuming the only alternative to the NHS is the US system.

It's what it boils down to - they are on respective ends of the spectrum and both are examples of dysfunction.
There are not that many options. Risk and cost are integral to the financial end of the service whether it's treated as an industry or a human right.
If you want a service, a doctor when you are ill or injured or having a baby, you need to fund it. Some countries put their money where their mouth is and have efficient, well thought out systems that enjoy the confidence of their clients and are not used as political footballs by unscrupulous political candidates.

There's a pervasive sense of there not being quite enough of anything to go round and encouragement of a sort of pre-emptive self-rationing.
YY to that.
The mindset that there is a very limited amount of anything - a scarcity mindset - is a very common one in the UK. It informs almost all political decision making and even decisions on a personal level. The whack-a-mole model of resource availability also features.

So sorry OP. You’re not being unreasonable. We’re simultaneously being told the NHS is still here for us and that all routine stuff is being cancelled. The two don’t marry up!

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

OP, your post is a powerful indictment of the multiple failures of the NHS. In report after report, after scandal after scandal, the conclusion has been that the NHS must prioritize patients. That is what a functioning health care system does. Protect the NHS is the slogan of a health care system which has its priorities reversed. It is quite incredible to hear that people are struggling to breathe and being refused hospital access. It is quite incredible that people will die because of cancelled treatments, yet NHS managers and A&E doctors are now in the media expressing concern about their lack of patients. And quiet hospitals. It's quite incredible how people think the only alternative is the US. No other country on the planet replicates the NHS system. Nowhere. There is a reason for that. OP, really sorry to hear about your dire experience. It's shameful.

When the NHS was set up in 1948 there were 400,000 intensive care beds. Now there are around 127,000
Because thankfully progress has meant that more patients treated better earlier means that less is required.

This is actually a success story, not the opposite. Why do people try to analysis information they don't understand in the first place is beyond me!

Classic wind them up and watch them spin here. Well played OP
That's very true, not even enough integrity to follow on such a highly emotional initial post.

Time to go. This thread has just shown once again that we are a growing nation of people all too happy to ignore their own responsibility and blame others when they are not looked after to their expectations for the poor choices they make.

In the meantime, people who become poorly through no fault of their own at all get substandard treatment.

Doctor bashing is always allowed on MN isn’t it.

I’m a GP, and, apart from trying to do most things on the phone, we’re working as normal.

We have a red room where we see possible CV cases, with full PPE (which we bought with our own money). This is accessed via a side door, so patients don’t walk through the main building.
We have an amber room where we see anyone else who needs a fact-to-face consultation.
We are phoning our high risk patients regularly to check they’re OK.
We employ a “social prescriber” who is organising practical support for vulnerable patients.
Both our Easter bank holidays and both May bank holidays have been cancelled (we weren’t asked, we were told).

But slag us off, why not? I can’t feel much worse than I already do.