Protect the bloody NHS again

[bathsh3ba]

Is anyone else sick of hearing this? Maybe, if health systems everywhere are failing to manage this virus, we should start to accept that it's not feasible for a publicly funded health service to be all things to all people. It can't treat every ailment or save every life because there just isn't the money for the staff or beds or equipment to do that. Especially when the furlough bill comes home to roost.

... and yet you are still alive OP ! and you didn't have to have additional stress about 'affording ' treatment....

@SpuriouserAndSpuriouser

Fucking hell, I should not have clicked on this thread.

I need a drink.

I’ve got one, and it seems to have evaporated suddenly.

So many useful idiots. So much ignorance. Such a lack of critical thinking. We are truly doomed.

What’s your ethical solution then? Clearly you have all of the answers with your extensive experience.

It's funny when folk talk about how great the "Proper Lockdown" was in Wuhan. When they literally sent cases to hotels away from family to get better or die alone.

@MummyPop00

Well, the NHS didn’t do very much for me in March when I had Covid. That was only confirmed by a private antibody test. No face to face GP appointment. Best advice I got was from a breathing video on YouTube.

As you say, the bill from Covid on top of an ageing population which we seem determined to save. Money is going to have to come from somewhere or people’s expectations will have to be lowered going forward.

.. and yet you are still alive and don't have to sell your house to afford treatment ! What would you prefer. .. a US style system with health for the rich only ?

Read "This is going to Hurt". It's a fucking eye opener.

The NHS is the people who work in it. That's what we should be protecting - the medical staff at least. Not so sure about saving the mgmt of it if I'm honest.

My dad died a few days ago. He was discharged from hospital with "pneumonia". No medication, no appropriate hospital bed, no care plan. He died in extreme discomfort, the doctor refusing to visitandmake him more comfortable.

On the day he died the law changed, doctors no longer need to certify death, undertakers can.

So yeah, I guess the collapse of healthcare isn't so bad eh?

I really hope that you don't have to see your relatives die that way.

The NHS failed more people than it helped during the first wave and the repercussions of that will be evident for many many years to come. Even now my husband has been waiting 13 weeks for the results of a scan for his brain tumour - I'm bloody furious on his behalf and for everyone else in a similar position.

There was a really interesting point on s thread during the first lockdown

Generally, surely, a health service should be there to help (protect) the population

The NHS however is so, something. That the population needs to protect it. It is not there for us, it is more important than us. To the extent that people died during the first lockdown as stayed away/ were told to stay away. To protect it. Not to protect the people who needed it more (more than the people who died after being told to stay at home until they turned blue/ were dead?) But to protect it, as a thing, an entity.

A really weird framing of a public health service.

Very very interesting.

Like the police, the NHS operates for ??? things, which you as a member of society might not be worthy of. And should understand that. Really really weird framing. Not from the staff obviously, this wording is from the government.

Would it be underfunded if they didn't have to provide things like IVF, vasectomy reversals, cosmetic procedures and who knows how many other things that are not needed.

We, and by 'we' I mean generally the UK, expect a lot of the NHS and seem to have lost sight of the fact that often it's simply prolonging life rather than saving it and that's not always in the best interests of the patient.

I'm not saying anyone should be denied medical care, or that we should adopt the American style of healthcare provision but there has to be a middle ground.

..and yet you are still alive and don't have to sell your house to afford treatment ! What would you prefer. .. a US style system with health for the rich only?

Quite. And before anyone says the US model is not the only one available, it is the only one on offer. The government has sentenced the NHS to death by a thousand cuts, forced outsourcing and fucking management consultants, but it will not have a conversation with the public about EU, Canadian, Aus/NZ-style funding models. We are sleepwalking into the US model.

I don't have 'the answer' because there isn't one. This is a shit situation, a health crisis. People are going to die and all locking down is going to does make the whole thing go on longer and cause more pain. I probably wouldn't go to hospital if I got COVID, no. Life in lockdown is so shit I'll take my chances with death. Happy now, vultures?

@yellowcatss
The U.K. spends much less of its gdp on healthcare than other eu countries and the gap is widening. And there are inefficiencies - managers who decide what budgets will be spent on who don’t fully understand clinical services and constant interference by government.
It’s not the fault of frontline staff who are risking their lives to care for people through this crisis.
And all the folk that moan about missing their holidays and not being able to eat out should remember the sacrifice these people are making on our behalf .
And I do feel very bad for all the people economically suffering because of the situation. But if we’d locked down harder and earlier and had a proper track and trace system they wouldn’t be in the terrible position they are now

@ShellieEllie

The NHS failed more people than it helped during the first wave and the repercussions of that will be evident for many many years to come. Even now my husband has been waiting 13 weeks for the results of a scan for his brain tumour - I'm bloody furious on his behalf and for everyone else in a similar position.

Yes. I’m furious too. But it’s not because Covid was prioritised because it’s special - patients are prioritised on the basis of who is likely to die first if they aren’t treated. We simply do not have the capacity. It’s very, very wrong.

Not from the staff obviously, this wording is from the government

Indeed. That’s how to create a scapegoat.

@OverTheRainbow88

I found it more frustrating that Boris said it’s so Doctors don’t have to choose who lives and dies by who gets the oxygen... but this is exactly what he’s doing by stopping so many treatments to not overwhelm the NHS

Where did he say they were stopping other treatments?

@bathsh3ba

Why is everyone who disagrees with you a vulture?

Why did you start a thread where you expected everyone to agree?

You need to wake up and grow up. Too many people sick at once will cause healthcare to collapse.

Nothing wrong with being a vulture

Very handsome birds.

OP, what makes you so sure that you know more than the experts? People like Professor Devi Sridhar - who explains how it's actually failed containment that prolongs this. It's failure to control the virus that prevents people from accessing medical care.

Like she says. Contain the virus, and that's the way to economic recovery and a functioning healthcare system.

@WiseUpJanetWeiss I completely disagree, Covid has most defintiely been prioritised over and above other medical conditions.

Would it be underfunded if they didn't have to provide things like IVF, vasectomy reversals, cosmetic procedures and who knows how many other things that are not needed.
These are all restricted treatments and procedures not routinely available on the NHS.

@ShellieEllie

@WiseUpJanetWeiss I completely disagree, Covid has most defintiely been prioritised over and above other medical conditions

Of course it has, yes. Cancer patients both diagnosed and undiagnosed have been left to die. These figures won't be evident until next year.

I haven't been able to get a blood test for months. Its a shambles already.

The waste and inefficiency is staggering. The right hand rarely knows what the left hand is doing. I spend some time on the "inside" and I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

I think also because the NHS is perceived as being free (it's very far from free), a lot of end users are selfish and disrespectful.

@NiceGerbil The Government is in charge of the NHS, if you are unhappy with its capabilities then you need to look to the Government, that's where the buck stops. They guaranteed more funding for the NHS, 50,000 more nurses and 50 million more GP appointments a year in their manifesto last year

[quote ShellieEllie]@WiseUpJanetWeiss I completely disagree, Covid has most defintiely been prioritised over and above other medical conditions.[/quote]
Covid patients have occupied beds. And by beds, I mean all the resources needed to provide treatment. Other critically ill patients have occupied other beds.

Measures have also needed to be taken to protect the staff and patients, which has meant that other services have run more slowly than before.

That’s not prioritising Covid, it’s prioritising patients with the most critical need. This has squeezed out other needs. It’s terrible, but it’s where we are.

If we had not treated the Covid and other critically ill patients they would have died or become more critically ill. If we had not introduced measures to protect staff more of them would have become ill, abs the services would have been even more reduced.

What I don’t understand is the inherent blaming of the NHS, which is made up of people who are trying their best in an imperfect system.
Why doesn’t the blame go higher? Why aren’t there enough staff (clue crap pay and not valued) why isn’t there a ‘pandemic plan’ to enable elective and emergency care to continue side by side, why aren’t winter pressures addressed let alone pandemic pressures. Etc etc etc.