The NHS. We need to fight to keep it.

[Differentforgirls]

My Mil is 87. Last year (around September) she was bleeding from her vagina and went to her GP.

The GP referred her to hospital for tests, which she got quickly.

It was cancerous polyps in her womb so she got further tests to ensure they hadn’t spread and was referred for surgery.

Tonight she has been discharged from hospital after numerous tests over the intervening months and a surgery yesterday (keyhole).

She’ll get follow up treatment too.

All NHS, where she has been treated with dignity, respect and kindness.

It might not be what it was due to cuts but it’s still something we should be proud of.

She’ll celebrate her 88th birthday next month, as an OAP in social housing with nothing but her pension, because of the NHS.

AIBU for thinking the NHS is something to be proud of and fight to keep?

I expect the premiums rising may also have had something to do with it.

How much are you paying for this monthly
How does the system work ,in that how do they decide who pays what

No ..it won't be that

You called me awful

Again call me all the names you want

But I know in an emergency who I would want to look after me

I’m not using your MIL specifically but I do agree to an extent with the poster who said this

people need to start being realistic about what can be provided and what should be expected, we have so many elderly patients who want resuscitation for example because it is glamorised on TV, families guilt their relatives into having all treatment etc, we are so afraid of death when I can assure you there are fates far worse. People need to start being realistic before the options are taken completely out of their hands

Hopefully not me as I don’t work for the NHS. Awful is a description, not a name.

Are you sure? Private health insurance for older people is eyewateringly expensive. It’s better to stash the money away and self insure once you’re past a certain age.

I signed a DNR for my dad. My MIL has years ahead of her.

Obscene, isn't it? I loosely followed the Sandie Peggie case and was struck by the number of people employed by NHS Fife whose jobs were DEI-related. It's all well and good, but when the wider organisation is on its arse, I think I'd rather pay for extra nurses etc.

I think this was always the Tories' plan and it's worrying to see so many MNers falling for it. The UK simply doesn't spend as much per person on healthcare as France, Germany, the Netherlands etc. Yet, posters keep repeating that spending more on the NHS via general taxation wouldn't solve anything as the NHS is flawed. However, the same posters think switching to a hybrid system of funding involving health insurance companies would magically make the NHS more efficient. This is illogical.

Twist it as much as you want, I was being realistic.

And the thing is you will never know who I am or if I will be looking after you. I can assure you, if you ever do end up in ICU, then you will find yourself being looked after not by me, but by someone who thinks the same

I can assure you, the staff on the ward, the nurses the Dr's, will all have been saying the same.

Being an ICU nurse isn't for the faint hearted. So you can say what you want about me, call me names, use descriptions, what I said was true.

Op, sincerely, I do hope your MIL has many healthy years ahead of her, and I for one, do not begrudge one penny of what was spent on her care, or that of anyone else who needs the NHS.

But that does not mean I am blind to the faults not to the waste and mismanagement of tax payers hard earned money, in the pursuit of votes by any and all of the governments in the UK.

If I hadn’t paid for my own MRI I would now be on a 5 month waiting list to have it done on NHS with another 5 month wait to get the results.

At the risk of starting a game of "Scan Top Trumps" my relative is a registrar at Kings in London and his patients are waiting 18 months for the results of routine MRI's. Inevitably, a few scans that were subjected to this wait detected unexpected things that are now either untreatable or much more serious.

They might come to regret that decision. I know a lot of people in their 70s and 80s who have gone privately to ensure good quality of life while they still have it. Mostly for cataract, knee and hip surgery.

You didn't sign a DNR, it is a clinical decision, you might have signed a form that the Dr has had a discussion with you, but it is a clinical decision.

I hope your MIL does have healthy years ahead of her.

But if she ever does suffer a cardiac arrest - I hope it is peaceful and not an hours longs attack.

It's not illogical to suppose that removing a monopoly would improve quality and efficiency. It's also reasonable that people are only willing to pay more if they receive an improvement to their own healthcare in return (that won't be piddled away on yet another payrise for doctors with no improvement in productivity). Successive increases in NHS funding just haven't improved matters. The state does most things badly, unfortunately.

As I said I wasn’t using your MIL as an example as clearly she is fit and well otherwise

what I dont agree with is throwing resources at people who have no quality of life

80 odd year olds getting cancer treatment when it isn’t curable for example, they don’t realise that having maintenance treatment is likely to make them very sick and so they are unable to enjoy what time they do have left

those with advanced dementia who are so contracted they can only lie in bed, can’t move themselves, can’t feed themselves, go to the toilet etc being pumped with every antibiotic going because family can’t let go.

we need to start having way more stark and honest conversations. I have discussed with my husband and children my wishes and will be getting these written down (although not sure how much notice is taken of these), I do not want kept alive with no quality of life, feeding tubes if I have a stroke and will be wheelchair bound etc, I want to be remembered for the person I am now not the shell I could be at the end

Its like the Daily Express on here at times.

I agree, and I say that as someone who has an 86 year old dad. He’s terminally ill with severe heart failure and kidney cancer. Was told at his cancer diagnosis 6 months ago that he’s too frail for surgery or treatment (chemotherapy presumably).

He’s still getting various scans etc for every single tiny thing such as a sore ankle or wrist. I’ve had to take him to hospital every week for the past two months and it’s a massive struggle to physically get him there. His doctor is now doing a full blood count every month, which not surprisingly comes back dire, so he’s then in for an emergency GP appointment. The last one showed low ferritin, so she’s put him on the 2 week cancer pathway for bowel cancer investigations even though he has no symptoms. He’s had an appointment with the specialist, who doesn’t think he has bowel cancer, but has booked him in for a scan and a colonoscopy in the next two weeks. If they do find any type of problem, I’m guessing he’s still going to be too frail for surgery or treatment?

You don't have to take him, you could say no.

None of these tests are compulsory.

When and who decides enough is enough?

this is part of the problem doctors and other health professionals are too scared to say look this isn’t going anywhere and we need to start thinking about comfort only care and I partly think it’s a lot to do with blame culture these days

I don’t know why you’re taking this so personally or what it has to do with my MIL getting keyhole surgery and spending the night in hospital until she had passed water enough.

I signed a DNR for my dad if that helps?

Thank you.

I did. My brother wouldn’t do it for months until I went mental at him. My dad was in a locked ward with initially a delirium, then dementia and was in constant distress.

He eventually signed.

I agree with you.