To feel angry at celebrating the NHS

[TaylorSwifting]

The NHS is falling apart and today people are all full of glee at the NHS yippee 75 years today, it’s making me so angry!!!!!!!!!
My family member has been diagnosed with cancer, 2 months down the line and has had no treatment and terrible delays for tests…..still yet to see an oncologist. 2 months!!!!!!!!! Family member only has pain management because us family have begged and fought to get it. It is an utter disgrace and I had no idea how bad things were until this awful diagnosis in our own family.
We are not alone / it hasn’t been a mistake or being lost in the system by accident! Record high cancer patient delays - this is what so many people are facing. I am in utter disbelief!
I won’t be celebrating today.

Totally agree with you OP. I worked as a nurse before getting sick in Jan 2020 and when I needed them myself they let me down. Had meningitis ( already had viral meningitis twice before so I know exactly when I am having another episode) and they didn't believe me, ignored the crushing pain in my head, told me it was a migraine and suggested it was all anxiety related. I pushed and pushed for the appropriate tests, received no apology when the results came back positive for meningitis and during the 10days I had spent taking up a bed arguing with doctors who had no sense of urgency to diagnose, treat and free up a bed I had no anti viral treatment given. When I deteriorated with seizures, spikes of tachycardia up to 200 bpm and acute leg paralysis ( signs of possible encephalitis) they did no urgent scans , but instead diagnosed conversion disorder , which is basically another name for 'hysteria'. I felt so alone, so vulnerable, never had a seizure in my life and the fact I couldn't move my legs for 4 days was absolutely terrifying. They ignored clear signs of deterioration in the setting of a central nervous system infection and treated me with contempt. In my mind they were utterly negligent and failed in their duty of care. Needless to say, I have since been left with memory loss, myoclonic jerks, residual leg weakness and severe medical ptsd. I have not worked as a nurse since as I cannot bear being in a medical environment. Doctors terrify me. So no, I do not celebrate the NHS. I am petrified of having to go back in hospital one day and would rather suffer at home. This is not ok and I know many people who have also been let down and are too scared to seek medical care. The collective gaslighting and colluding of the doctors and nurses on the ward was almost tangible and I am actually ashamed to say I was once a medical professional. They ruined my life and I will never trust another health professional again.

It was to counter the pp whose mother is deteriorating at 75. They represent different ends of the spectrum, most of are somewhere in between but those two divergent examples illustrate the lunacy of having some arbitrary age at which you remove people’s right to health care. I really don’t want to live in a country in which eugenics operates.

thats not what eugenics is…

Pedants corner is that way ➡️

Killing old people by stealth is probably clearer.

The only thing killing old people is old-age. The only thing keeping them alive is the NHS, which is buckling under the weight of them. You can argue until blue in the face, but they are the biggest demographic utilising the service. And many of them will utilise the service for 30 odd years. It’s just not fair and not what the NHS was founded for.

But it’s an important distinction isn’t it? And you should expect to be corrected if you’re making claims which are both hysterical and incorrect.

It’s exactly what the NHS was founded for - care from the cradle to the grave. It’s entirely fair, the value of life isn’t determined by age.

Adding misogyny to ageism now. This isn’t a great day on MN, is it?

So you would advocate resources being diverted from a 50 year old to a 93 year old?

Did I say that? Both should be treated. And something’s gone badly wrong if they weren’t.

its already going badly wrong. What you say only applies if we have plentiful resources and staff, which we do not. And won’t for years to come. What should happen in the meantime?

They anticipated the grave would be coming along a lot a lot sooner though. Wasn’t the life expectancy, 60 at the time ?

Healthcare in other countries isn’t all that people make out either. Some of them treat certain groups as lesser so it really depends on who you are and what treatment you need. And most of them pay considerably more for the services through taxation and top up charges

No, it was 68, it’s now 81.

And if we’re going to ration health care and withhold it from people on the basis of age @Sweetashunni, then we need to be transparent about it and implement it through legislation. Good luck to any political party putting that in its manifesto.

Its a problem regardless of whether legislation acknowledges it. I find your answers to be a bit ‘cop out’, Blossom - saying ‘oh but they BOTH should be treated’ knowing full well there isn’t the resources to do so and you’re not the one who has to make the hard decisions. You can just finger point at those who do, or admit they would choose one or the other because both isn’t even possible,

There are the resources to treat both. If the NHS was operating rationing on the basis of age its employees would be shouting it from the roof tops. They’re not.

Bed blocking isn’t an issue is it?

We know it’s not happening question is, should it be? Literally blows my mind because they can and do withhold treatment if it’s not in the patients best interests and yet I cannot fathom how anybody decides putting elderly patients through the trauma of surgery is in the best interests, especially if they are not of sound mind and they genuinely don’t know what’s going on. Which does happen.

We do need another system. I am one of the (I imagine) few people in the UK apart from US citizens, who have excellent working knowledge of the US health care system due to a near fatal road accident I had when I lived out there for a year. At no point did anyone ask for my credit card details before putting me in an ambulance (I was unconscious anyway!) and part of my internship contract was having medical insurance and proving it up front, which given I was a student when I organised this can't have been that expensive. The rest of Europe have better health care systems, I've just paid to access Germany's medical treatment. Here, we expect lifestyle choices to be supported while actual medical conditions are ignored and of course priority should be given to the under 80s.

It's my mum that is incontinent at 77 and she has been for years, I recall her being about 75 when things became unbearable. We can't take her out without her wetting the seats, having violent diarrhoea over the public loos (the smell is unreal and it ends up all over her clothes and hands) and my car needs disinfecting after she's been in it. She had a UTI in April and was close to death due to complications from it and now after many weeks in hospital and a respite home she's coming back to a carer package of four visits a day in her own home. She's not able to walk very far, can't even boil a kettle without risk of injury and yet she was dragged back from a peaceful passing because the NHS said so. She's tired, confused, has expressed a wish to die and has no quality of life and this will only get worse. As her only child, I'm having to watch her deteriorate and be surrounded by her own waste. They have tried botox several times to stop the incontinence and she has seen every bladder, bowel and continence specialist going and noone can do anything to prevent the accidents. She smells, her house smelled so bad I had to get the council in to take her furniture before I could go even go in to get it ready for her coming home. Every loo she uses ends up with a dribble of liquid poo down the front that I have to clean up. She wears pads and they end up piling up because the bin men will only take so many and they weigh a tonne because they are literally piss wet through. It's grim. My sons know I'll kill myself before I end up in that state. If my pet was like this we know what would happen but now she's been patched up and sent home - as a family we all know that come winter the same thing will happen. Its inhumane.

Bed blocking is an issue caused by lack of resources in social care, not health. Deciding we’re not going to treat people over a certain age won’t solve that. And it happens mainly on care of the elderly and rehab wards so would have no impact on the treatment of your hypothetical 50 year old.

Lord help us. What do you suggest we do with all of these over 80s? More than a million people. Just cut off their healthcare? What about obese people, or smokers, the severely disabled?
This is all getting a bit Sophie's choice. I'm betting that none of you will feel like this when you approach 80.

I wouldn't want the life my mum will have if she makes 80, so I'm sure I'll be ready to meet my maker if I'm needing constant NHS treatment just to get through a day! We're not talking about perfectly healthy 80 year olds and I'm sure there's loads, we're talking about not artificially extending a life with no quality.

Amen to that. Posters who do share information about the supposedly dire state of the US healthcare system—“The NHS might be in shambles, but at least we’re not the US!”—are referencing situations that are ten years or more out of date.

The simple fact is the ACA targeted the major problems (crippling costs, exclusion for preexisting conditions, etc.) that used to exist, while keeping the same very, very high standard of care in medical facilities.

Indeed, I’d expect most Americans would be appalled and horrified if they were ever expected to stay on 1960s-style wards instead of private or double rooms, forced to jump through hoops and wait months to get medical appointments, not able to get their children seen by specialized pediatricians as a matter of practice but instead required to rely on jack-of-all-trade GPs, etc. like is done on the NHS. Talk about a massive culture shock and perceived downgrade in quality of care!

And there are a million similar complaints that could be said for someone coming from France, or Germany, or Lithuania. The NHS is great—if you don’t mind 1980s quality service and care standards in 2023.

Because of healthcare and better living conditions many people are living longer than life expectancy 75 years ago. What do you want to do with these elderly people? Kick them aside so that you can get your medical care? Think again. These people have just as much right as you to access healthcare.

I’m sorry but we all pay into the NHS. How many years would an 85 year old have been contributing towards the NHS funding pot? Most likely working hard for a large portion of their life, paying tax… to be told they can’t use it when they need it most?

some people are ridiculous