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.

But they retired a lot sooner and many being stay at home mums isn’t representative of everyone either is it?

many started working at a younger age. My great grandfather worked from 16-68 .

my aunt dies last year aged 80 and worked as a dinner lady right up until she was I’ll for the last 8 months of her life.

people are retiring later so arguable putting more money into the NHS over their lifetime but the NHS is becoming even more overstretched. People are living longer. You cannot ask people to contribute to the NHS and then not access healthcare when they are older and really need it.

there are lots of reforms that need to happen but an octogenarian dying rather than having lifesaving surgery in case someone young needs a bed isn’t it.

I have. And none of these horror stories would be remotely affected by bedblocking on wards designed for people over 65. In fact if you offered most people a bed on one of those wards they’d be outraged. The people suffering from bedblocking are old people.

*ill

These are 13,000 people that can't go to their homes or residential care homes because there isn't the right social care available to them.
165,000 vacancies in social care.
We've known this was an issue for patients and that it has a wider impact on the NHS for years. Nothing has been done.

Not only that but it’s a storm that’s been brewing for almost 80 years. The population bulge caused by the meteoric birth rate post war has been kicked down the road by politicians of both main parties. It’s been abundantly obvious for decades that a lot of old people would all arrive at old age simultaneously but it’s been completely ignored. Funny that somehow they managed to educate us all and take our taxes for 40 odd years yet have used none of that money to make provision for the situation that’s been on the horizon for so long.

There isn’t the money. What can be done? Who will fund it?

40 years is less than half the time the average person lives for. And who would have been overseeing this long term project?

Successive governments should have planned for it. God knows there’s been enough time. They managed to find school places for us all with only five years notice.

Yes, you’re right @Sweetashunni. I underestimated. Most people reaching old age now started work at 16 and plenty won’t retire until 66 or 67, so that’s 50 years. Whereas at least half of generations born since the 90s will start work at 21 or 22 so they’ll have to work until their early 70s to match us.

"There isn’t the money. What can be done? Who will fund it?"

False economy. It costs money to keep them in hospital not to mention the delay to other services and treatments for other patients - that's lost workdays and further dents to the nations health.

What taxes should go up?

It is false economy and the issue isn’t the just money either, a lot of those people will be self funders. It’s the lack of people to actually do the care. We haemorrhaged care workers as a result of Brexit and covid and they’ve never been replaced. We have incredibly low unemployment and nobody wants to do care work for minimum wage.

How are people denying that the NHS is a cult when there are posters literally proposing we sacrifice elderly people to it

They're not suggesting we sacrifice the elderly to the NHS. They just don't want disgusting old people cluttering up their healthcare.
At the start of the pandemic The Telegraph suggested (can't remember who wrote it) that COVID was great because it was the elderly dying and think of all the money we'd save on pensions.

What?? Unemployment is HIGH. It’s just the number of people actively looking for work - jobseekers - is low. But the overall number of working age people who are economically inactive is enormous, roughly a quarter!!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52660591.amp

But we need the initial enormous cash injection to get it going first (plus time and staff) and we don’t have any of that.

I find it utterly bizarre that we had a service at the Abbey dedicated to a monolithic healthcare system with poor outcomes. Truly the sacred cow of our country.

I have a congenital heart defect, went from mild, to moderate to severe in 2018 before Covid. They were planning on surgery, that is until the huge waiting list after Covid lockdowns screwed it up! I now have no idea if I’ll ever have surgery before heart failure, haven’t even set eyes on my cardiologist since Pre Covid…yearly ultrasound, last comment from radiologist was next step will be Atrial Fibrillation…great! I work part time and keep myself as fit as I can…I’m on Beta blockers and nobody has an idea what strength I’m supposed to be on!
The NHS needs a proper commission to decide what it’s actually here for…what to treat etc…get rid of bloated management and use it on core staff.

That’s not how we measure unemployment. Economic inactivity is not the same as being unemployed. If people choose not to work and are able to support themselves independently, they’re not unemployed. Those people are unavailable for work - and even more unavailable to the care sector.

YADNBU.

Had total respect for the NHS although didn't need it, until starting work there two years ago and do an in-house job trying to help staff.

Discrimination, racist, cliquey, bullying and toxic. My predecessor on walking out the door as I walked in "you join the NHS, you're on your own". Correct.

It is soulless, joyless, stressful and underpaid. No wonder there are so many vacancies, so many leave and about half the staff are off sick at any one time. You'd be better off working in Tesco and no disrespect to Tesco staff.

After two years of crying and doubting myself I'm looking for another job and never want medical treatment, but a part of me does so I can give them hell after being shouted and abused by "colleagues". Not all are bad but there's an undercurrent of nastiness.

Most NHS managers think they're all that. Some are lovely but most I deal with are scum.

Never again will I have sympathy or kindness towards people who have shown me nothing but contempt when all I wanted was to help. They'll then continue to wonder why there's a staff shortage when they've scored an own goal.

You really don't get it do you? None of his trips to hospital would have meant him dying if he hadn't been taken there, he would have recovered until the next time and the next and the next, and would possibly have died at the same age he eventually did die but would have been living with breathlessness and wouldn't have been able to get around which means more work for someone else and a shit quality of life for him.

Incidentally, the procedure he had is generally only offered to older people who are likely to benefit from it - younger people have open heart surgery.

I wasn't actually commenting on the NHS, just your disgusting attitude towards people with an illness based on their age. Nothing you have said has changed my perception of you.

But they’re not supporting themselves independently are they? The figures include those out of work on sickness benefits, which is a huge number - 2 million.

‘It’s not how it works’ because it suits the current government to fluff it up so it looks like unemployment is really low, when actually they just mean one particular type of unemployment.

So now you not only want old people not to receive healthcare but you expect sick people to work as well? Is there no end to your compassion?

This. Sadly, once you’ve worked in this sector, you see all the interventions ( ever had to or from CPR on a 92 yr old with advanced dementia and a host of other complications? No? I did. Horrific horrendous experience. Was successful - crash team and everything - and guess what?

She died 2 days later, probably in agony because we broke her ribs doing CPR. Waste of time, resources and it is beyond cruel to the patient. This “keep alive at all costs” the NHS has is ridiculous.

Oh, unless you’re under 50. Then you can fuck off because no one under 50 gets sick. Except they do, it they just get ignored until it’s too late. But nevermind hey? Least there’s a load of dementia patients crowding the wards getting every treatment under the Sun when actually the kindest thing would be to let them go and use the resources on I don’t know, paeds?? CAMHS?? That’s an area of serious underfunding - kids.

Yet no one cares. There’s no money or resources for them. Or pregnant women - they can fuck off as well apparently. Let down over and over again. But yeah, long as geriatrics take up beds and the social care issue continues to get worse because of the long lives these people are living ( the MAJORITY in piss poor health NOT sprightly 80 year olds who are a rarity ) nothing matters right?

Sorry if some of you find this offensive. It probably is. But a discussion needs to be had in this country about DNRs, Advance Care Planning and accepting that not all illnesses are meant to be cured, especially in very old age.

Surely you had to carry out resus on that 92 year old because they didn’t have a DNAR? How is that the NHS’ fault? My mum had one because I had POA and it was obvious resus would break every bone in her upper body.

No they didn’t have a DNR - and that’s my point. The family didn’t want to sign one and the Drs went with their wishes - despite knowing it was a futile effort. So no, that isn’t the NHs’ fault, but more needs to be done in changing this attitude that the NHS is there to keep all patients alive whatever the cost. It just isn’t viable to keep people alive after a certain age if they have multiple serious conditions.

If we keep going like this, then there won’t be an NHS at all, because coupled with the Tory’s chronic underfunding, people’s lack of personal responsibility and again a massive increase in the elderly population it’ll just implode.