Baby denied treatment by NHS because family have overstayed

[wonderstuff]

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/03/13/erbs-palsy-baby-sanika-ahmed-denied-treatment-_n_2866288.html

Baby will be permanently disabled, losing use of one arm if she isn't treated soon. NHS trust are refusing treatment, because although the baby was born here her fathers work visa ran out several years ago. They are being supported by an uncle. I think that the child should be treated, she is innocent and I'm really saddened by the number of people posting comments by this article saying they agree with the NHS stance on this.

What do you think?

NorthernLurker, oh no, I don't need to resign.

I understand healthcare economics very well. And can look beyond grabbing and hoarding resources for my own family while denying others.

If you give up the moral argument for helping the innocent and vulnerable in society, you are left simply with an economic one. And that will eventually mean no free care for anyone. Each family only gets what they put into the system and each child will get care according to the means of their parent

"And can look beyond grabbing and hoarding resources for my own family while denying others."

Why not argue against what Northern is saying?

Implying that she, a compassionate Christian NHS manager, is hoarding resources for her family should be beneath you.

You are wrong to imagine that you are making a moral argument and she is making an economic one. She is making a moral argument too.

How scarce resources are distributed is an ethical choice, and one Northern is at the sharp end of every day in her work.

Insisting that all children in Britain must be given free NHS care has certain merits, but as things are currently configured it either can't be afforded, or other treatment must be denied to pay for it.

So how will we do it if it is an absolute moral imperative?

Who pays and how?

And how do we manage the incentives to illegal immigration we create by giving everyone who can arrive here full access to the welfare state?

Another founding principle of our welfare state was that everyone paid in according to their means and was entitled to receive based on need.

You want to scrap the first part of the compact. It's hard to see why anyone would be happy to pay into a system that allowed that level of freeloading.

flatbread who is grabbing and hoarding?

Certainly not me! If you actually bothered to read any of the posts, I have spelt out on here that my son could die because of NHS policy. I can understand why they have that policy - money. I don't like it, because its my son, but I understand that there have to be rules and there have to be limits.

I have considerably more to lose than this family. mrsdavidcaruso has already lost more than this family. We both still realise there are limited resources.

It's all very well throwing your hands up and saying you'll sack all the managers etc. but you aren't in charge. The money needs to be found now. It's not there.

And how do we manage the incentives to illegal immigration we create by giving everyone who can arrive here full access to the welfare state?

She didn't arrive here. She was born here and sustained the injury here.

Another founding principle of our welfare state was that everyone paid in according to their means and was entitled to receive based on need.

Children cannot pay in anyway.

You want to scrap the first part of the compact. It's hard to see why anyone would be happy to pay into a system that allowed that level of freeloading.

Lots of people have said they are happy to reach into their own pockets to pay for this child. I doubt that this is because she is cute. It is probably because she is in a situation not of her own making where she is being discriminated against.

The NHS has to make this sort of very difficult choice on a daily basis and I don't envy those who have to make them. However I do believe that we have a responsibility to children whom we are allowing to remain in our country and who were not brought here with that health need.

Of 1 million illegal immigrants only a small number will be children with serious health issues which have arisen here and require costly intervention.

The fact that there is such a hot debate about this issue implies that this decision may be just the wrong side of a very fine line.

If push came to shove, which parent here would willingly donate their own child's place for similar surgery if it was needed (assuming a confirmed entitlement for UK NHS treatment) for a child in the position described of the OP?

compassionate Christian NHS manager

Lol. So now let's get religion into it.

It is the classic bogeyman argument. Scaremongering and de-humanising others to deny care. 'They' are grabby and want to just come and take.

And it is ironic that many of the people making the argument are the ones hogging benefits and NHS. I guess they somehow think they are more worthy and entitled to take from our society.

Anyone who thinks that a sick child living in our society should be denied care because of her parents, doesn't deserve to benefit from our welfare system either.

There are a lot of ways NHS can be made more efficient. Cull pencil-pusher 'managers' for one. If you look at comparative private systems, the level of inefficiencies in NHS are shocking.

I would be fine with cutbacks on IVF. It is more important that living children in our society are prioritised for care than conceiving more.

And I am fine with all of us paying a fee when we go to GPs so that can be used to fund care.

What I am NOT fine with is a sick child living in our community being denied care because of how we judge her parents.

"She didn't arrive here. She was born here and sustained the injury here."

She may not have arrived here, but her parents did.

And if being born here automatically entitles you to full NHS care, then that will create an incentive for more people to come and have children here.

"Children cannot pay in any way."

No they can't.

But currently the expectation is that their parents have paid in.

Entitlement to free NHS care is based on parents' status.

We can only change that if we make a lot of money available from somewhere.

Where?

Raise taxes? Treat fewer people within current budgets?

"However I do believe that we have a responsibility to children whom we are allowing to remain in our country and who were not brought here with that health need."

As I understand it we were not allowing her to remain in the country until after she had been turned down for surgery.

So it seems that your attempt to narrow the criteria would be unworkable. As would (IANAD) the pre-existing condition restriction.

So we're back to covering all children born or brought here.

"Of 1 million illegal immigrants only a small number will be children with serious health issues which have arisen here and require costly intervention."

I don't think your restrictions are workable.

I think you would have to make free NHS care for all conditions available to the children of all illegal immigrants.

And I think that will be very costly.

Thanks for discussing :)

Nobody is judging her parents.

Just pointing out that they (and she) do not qualify for NHS care under the current rules.

But clearly you are just using this as a lever to argue for dismantling public healthcare.

Your arguments aren't moral, they are ideological.

And you're obviously quite a virulent benefits basher, so your support for this child's treatment seems disingenuous.

flatbread you keep saying the same thing. You do not address ANY of the points being made on this thread.

By the way, I am not a "they". You know my name. You can call me Trazzle. Ignoring me doesn't make me go away. Bitching about me by calling me grabby and selfish doesn't make me go away.

I have explained NUMEROUS times my point of view: that a child's LIFE should come before NON-EMERGENCY TREATMENT. I'm still waiting to hear from you why loss of use of a limb is worse than the death of a child.

But since you are completely ignoring my numerous posts addressed to you, I doubt I'll ever get my answer.

"defending, say, a mum with 11 kids getting benefits 'because the children shouldn't suffer, they are innocent'."
Yep probably me

And yet turn around and callously justify a sick child being left paralysed
Absolute bullshit.
The difference is one of eligibility.

Frazzle, so ok. Let's use healthcare resources for for life-threatening care. And let everyone pay for routine care, ok?

That kind of catastrophic coverage does exist in the US and we can apply it here. I am fine with that. What I am not fine with is discriminating between children based on the actions of their parents.

Trazzle not Frazzle

flatbread, which child should be denied treatment so this one can be treated. Pick one
And if you bothered to read any other posts which you quite clearly aren't, you'd see that many people, me included, have said we'd gladly send money to a fund set up to help this little girl. But what we won't do is agree that NHS eligibility criteria should change - that wouldn't just affect her, it would affect many more like her. Basically more children would die, children who are currently eligible for NHS treatment, to treat children who are NOT currently eligible. Ah hang on but you'll whipo out your magic pot, and magic up some cash to treat them all, oh and while you're in there, I'll have an aston martin.

OK, now you haven't read that, feel free to go back to calling me a benefit scrounger.

"That kind of catastrophic coverage does exist in the US and we can apply it here. I am fine with that."

Most people are, rightly, terrified of that.

Including lots of Anericans. Hence healthcare reform.

But you've revealed yourself as someone uninterested in the welfare of sick children but very interested in dismantling public healthcare.

Your argument basically boils down to

"If the NHS cannot cover X unaffordable thing, then it must be dismantled."

That is an ideological argument making hay out of a sick child's predicament to push a pre-existing, self-interested agenda.

The moral argument is being well made by Goldmandra and she of the UN rights of the child argument earlier in the thread.

People with private healthcare wanting to remove all but "catarophic" treatment from non-wealthy British children, on the pretext of NHS care being discriminatory against people who are not ordinarily resident here, are not honest participants in this argument.

Presumably, if the parents had been deported as soon as permission to stay had been denied, then flatbread would have accepted that Bangladesh would have been responsible for any medical provision required.
Which considering the dire state it's in might well mean that the girl may well not have survived birth.
Considering the absolute venom shown towards anyone claiming benefits of any kind, perhaps improved protection against immigration is something that would be approved of. There were certainly a huge number of first generation families entitled to a range of benefits in the area I worked in, from FSM to housing grants, because they were on minimum wage or unemployed. They were in the same situation as many of the indigenous population in the same area.

sigh that is not what I am saying AT ALL.

I love the NHS.

At the moment, people who are eligible are entitled to routine care. That's brilliant. I am very happy with that. Long may it continue.

What I am saying (apparently til I'm blue in the face) is that if my son relapses, there's a good chance we will have to go abroad for treatment as the NHS may well not fund life-saving treatment.

My point is: in cases where the NHS can't/ won't fund, I would rather that money was spent on life-saving emergency care rather than non-emergency care because, in my view, a life is more important.

Flatbread if you're an economist you'd know finite finanial resources vs infinite treatment demands is problematic. You seem ti really lack grasp that if eligibility criteria change there will be increased demand. That essentially needs costing and paid for

See you recommend cease ivf treatment flatbread.so already you're thinking about how in a stretched service not all demands can be met. You suggesting Stopping ivf is managing finances by terminating service.you're giving an example of refusing to fund treatment based on cst

This case is about eligibility to service And ultimately finances

The v worthy well if I were a doctor I'd just do it,that's sentimental rot.everyone operates transparently,it's not just about dr piling in.it's real life not Holby
Getting a Theatre time slot,getting medical team,porter,anesthetist,nurses, post op support hdu, physio,ot,nurses,

Thank you for your comments Athing

"if eligibility criteria change there will be increased demand. "
You'd think that would be obvious to an economist. And that money trees don't actually exist

Neither the money tree nor the funding fairy It's hard to be disillusioned.......

No the funding fairy does exist. She comes to the homes of us benefit scroungers. She lightly dusts round, cleans the bathroom and then leaves a little pile of £50 notes in the front hall.

Bet she sits down and smokes some fags in front of the flat screen TV while she's there.

The lazy bitch.

Well if she does she takes all her stubs and turns on the pebble air fresner before she goes

scottishmummy, I don't mind being patronised by people smarter than me. But when petty people with their small minds make trite comments, it is hard to decide whether to laugh or groan with irritation.

Trazzle, so your point was really not that all of us should sacrifice so that children get necessary care. Just that you and your family should have access to as much care as you possibly can, by denying other innocent children.

Yes, there is no cash fairy. And you know what, the argument you are using against this little child, will be turned against you. We have finite resources, so we divide it on how much each one has contributed. No free NHS, no benefits or handouts more than your own contribution. Each one is on their own and children are the responsibility of every parent, not just for illegal immigrants.

This thread has just clearly illustrated the hypotheses I presented early -the ones who take from the system the most are the petty-minded ones who will jealously prevent the more vulnerable than them from benefitting. Complete takers with no decency towards other vulnerable people, especially innocent children.

So who are these people you keep cowardly alluding to but refuse to name? And your superiority in both money and intellect is getting a little unbelievable now - do you really think we are all thick?