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.

You didn’t say these things then?

I would seriously question the quality of life anybody has over the age of 80, and I’m sure everybody knows somebody who is running marathons and playing cricket for England at 80. Whatever, most of them are sat rotting in their own piss.

The line has to be drawn somewhere. 80 is a good age. I’m not suggesting that 80 there you’ll get rounded up and taken off. But beyond a tea if you want to prolong your own life and have the capacity to express that wish, you pay for it.

Killing old people by stealth is probably clearer

Thought that was only Hancocks job! Evidently not.

@Sweetashunni As you have brought up bed blocking

Its down to a shortage of care home places AND care workers. Where did you stand on the Covid vaccine mandate?

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

A lot of them will be sat on NHS waiting lists

No where does it say theyd be better off dead. Letting nature takes it course is the right thing to do, chopping up people who dont heal well, are a greater risk from anaesthesia, infection etc is just plain wrong.

Completely aside of the financial aspects which cant be ignored.

Its quite a difference from "we must lock down to protect the vulnerable and elderly" isnt it.

I guess they have lost their usefulness now they cant be used as fodder for emotional blackmail to get other groups to follow the Covid rulz

Oh yes it was, in fact it was said several times.

No it wasnt …, is your reading comprehension fading goosey ?

Given that a number of us think that’s exactly what you said, maybe it’s your writing
that’s at fault? Just a thought.

You told me my late DF should not have had a new aortic valve fitted, he should have simply stayed at home, breathless, with a trip to hospital every few weeks, for as long as it took for "nature to take its course".

Fortunately the hospital didn't have the same attitude. He had a procedure, there was no "chopping up" involved, nor a general anaesthetic, nor infection (he was actually prone to infection and was at the tail end of a superbug when he went to hospital) and he went home the next day. They don't do these procedures unless they are sure there is going to be a beneficial outcome for the people involved and that they will have a good quality of life afterwards. It's a good thing the decisions are not left to people like you.

See my post above.

No, no, you misunderstood. I don’t think he should’ve gone to the hospital every few weeks either, unless he is paying himself. Then he/you can do whatever he likes.
Decisions like that will be in people like me’s hands when we get to the ballot box.

Decisions like that will be in people like me’s hands when we get to the ballot box.

What political party do you support that thinks like that, just out of interest?

I'm in favour of making treatment decisions on the basis of an individual's clinical presentation and health/recovery prospects alone.

I think most doctors and medical professionals do exactly that. B because currently they aren’t under much in the way of financial pressure. It’s no skin off their nose who is prioritised. Nor should they ever be put into that position hence they need the line in the sand.

Will have to wait and see who is going to take the necessary measures. And that’s where the X will go.

Looks like you’re politically homeless then.

I don't understand why you have a problem with doctors taking decisions based on the clinical picture and the clinical prognosis. That makes sense. You are proposing blanket age criteria based on cost. That's grotesque. There may be a political party that will put that in its manifesto, but I don't see them getting a lot of votes - even if we changed from FPTP to PR.

And a good thing too.

When a patient is in front of the clinician, they make the decision on the prognosis, the issue is that so many of the younger patients are never even getting that far before it’s too late.

I am not denying medical treatment people over the age of 80 in this scenario, but if it’s purely life-prolonging as opposed to pain management, and they need to pay extra.

Nope, not buying it. We don't make people pay more because they're old, that's wrong. People should be prioritised on waiting lists according to purely clinical criteria, not age.

Where's your evidence that younger people are not being seen? Show us the data.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jul/07/patient-dies-hospitalised-sciensus-chemotherapy-incident

In England in 2017, there were 16.6 million hospital admissions for people of any age (Figure 1). Of these, 3.5 million (22.2%) were amongst people aged 75 years and older, despite this age group only representing 8.2% of the population.

obviously, these numbers are out of date but I can’t imagine they’ve diminished can you?

It’s disproportionate, obviously nobody is going publish the costs. Nobody is going to highlight the bleeding obvious that the resources are not infinite. Despite the claims that they are, they clearly not.

That’s because more old people get sick. It’s not rocket science.

He never called an ambulance himself for these hospital trips - what was he supposed to do when one turned up, tell them sorry, I don't want to go into hospital even though you think I should!! As I've already told you, he wouldn't have died if he didn't go to hospital, but would have had a shit quality of life - apparently that is the price one pays for getting old in your skewed little world.

As for "paying himself" - I've never heard of a hospital here which tells patients they can pay if they want to.

Reading through the posts on this thread you are very much in the minority in your ideas, and even if the government changes when you get to the ballot box what makes you think the new govt. will change the way your health service works (unless of course you will be in charge of it!!!).

Here we have a change of government every few years, nothing has changed about the how the elderly are treated under any of them.

I totally appreciate the many, many wonderful staff that work within the NHS, often in really rubbish conditions and the care I’ve had in hospitals for myself or my children has been amazing.

Where I’ve noticed the failings of late however are the call handlers and think the service needs an overhaul or ‘something’ to stop this apparent habit of just passing the book, letting serious red flags go untreated and not wanting to take action. Perhaps it’s lack of training, perhaps too much of a workload and too little funding, perhaps too many people utilising it when they don’t need to; I’m not sure of the cause.

I called 111 with what I didn’t know at the time, a pulmonary embolism. MN actually diagnosed me because I was just told by 111 to go to a pharmacy rather than A&E. I don’t like to think about what may have happened had I not posted here with doubts and being urged to go to be seen. I complained and have it in writing that I was failed and the call handler repeatedly didn’t seek further advice from a clinician or ask me further questions to clarify.

We were told to ring 999 on another occasion by our GP reception, for a rash on baby DD which wasn’t fading under glass and had changed in colour/type. We rang 999 where we got stuck with a call handler for ages who deemed us not of urgency, didn’t need an ambulance and they’d just pass it back to a GP at our surgery to ring us back in 10 minutes. GP rang absolutely furious at their response and insistent that any child, especially a baby, with a non blanching rash, must go to hospital.

I'm sad and frustrated looking at the 75th celebrations, maybe because I do not feel like celebrating - we've several staff members who left, struggle to recruit, waiting times are the longest I remember, people we see have very complex needs that we cannot help with and it's a struggle to refer anywhere, so we end up with revolving doors. A couple of photo opportunities won't help.

And if you want to try and prolong it, it should be at your expense. I actually would draw a line in the sand and pick an age beyond which certain treatments are offered.

This is beyond the pale. But not surprising given this poster has form for truly vile posts. Honest to fuck hope she doesn't work in the health or care sector.