NHS wont pay for toddler to walk again

[elesbells]

here

Yes, treatment is fairly swift with a suicide bomber ..

Fio, there is no point in trying to be the voice of reason. Clearly, suicide-bombing-illegal-immigrants stole his legs.

And IVFers and smokers and druggies and alcoholics and obese people.

Lolol @ "Clearly, suicide-bombing-illegal-immigrants stole his legs."

lifesaving treatment vs legs.

No, they really dont give instant treatment to anybody where this family live.

I would imagine that they arent paying for it, because the hospital in question is so far in debt its untrue.

Fio is right too - they do grow so fast, and their centre of gravity changes as rapidly with it.

I'm sure the Sun can help with the small change from their enormous coffers.

scum who kills vs innocent child.

And let's not forget the one-legged-Romanian-lesbian-homeless-dog-on-a-string - it got four new legs on the NHS within minutes of popping out of the Channel tunnel at Ashford.

Its a non-starter comparison, rudebox.

There are no toddler suicide bombers who would need special prosthetics.

"Toddler suicide bombers" - whoa, whoa, whoa - we are perilously near to SWMNBN territory.

instant treatment for suidcide bomber -yes...to try to save life - yes...to allow police to quiz to find out who else was involved/stop future attacks etc...ok?

exactly fio, all other support will be given and in palce (hopefully) but for a small child thats still growing very fast prosethic limbs arent a real option in most cases.

Fitting of prosthetic legs can be very time consuming as clearly the need to be comfortable and not chafe anywhere. I can imagine that for a toddler they could easily outgrow them by the time they were made iyswim.

On the smokers bizniz, I think I read that tobacco raises about 9 billion annually in revenue and they figure the health costs of smoking at about 1.5 - 2 billion. So if everyone stopped smoking overnight it would be a bit of a disaster for public spending, including health. Also, smokers die younger and don't consume any of that fearsomely expensive long term care in their dotage . The rest of us should be thanking them and giving them little huts on the street to keep the rain off.

I've read something that says the opposite of your stats, tech.

Are you a smoker, perchance?

I am a little surprised. Prehaps there is more to the story than has been actually published.

The nhs has very good child orthoric services, or at least it does in our area. My son used to wear orthoric inserts and I remember seeing a fairly young child (although a lot older than 16 months) with a porsteic limb.

Learning to walk on prosthetic limbs is painful and difficult and takes a long time (my friend had to do this and she was an adult), especially with such a high limb loss as that poor little boy. I would also guess that he might well have outgrown them by the time he was able to use them, and they probably won't be very useful for helping him in daily activities at that age, when he can use a pushchair, be carried, commando crawl (I hope) or sit in a highchair to join with family activities. Even with prosthetic limbs walking is limited for a double amputee with such a high loss, and often requires the help of a stick or crutches, at least initially. I can't see a 16 month old tolerating the pain, the learning process or using a stick. I might be wrong, but I suspect there is a reason apart from cost for the NHS's decision here. Not that the NHS is great for amputees of any age, but that's a different story.

Hi VVVQV, From the ASH Website:
QUOTE
Why tobacco taxes should be high and continue to increase - Clive Bates, Director, Action on Smoking and Health, London

It is true that NHS costs are lower than tobacco tax revenues. Tobacco taxation amounts to £10.5 billion per year whereas a figure for NHS spending on tobacco related disease is £1.7 billion. But so what? The comparison is a false one. Tobacco tax is not and never has been a down payment on the cost dealing with ill health caused by smoking.
UNQUOTE

To be fair, he goes on to say there are all sorts of other hidden costs of smoking. I don't smoke btw. I used to, but quit about two years ago. I now hate the smell, welcome the ban on indoor smoking and am generally a born-again non-smoking intolerant of tobacco type.

But.... I do sometimes wonder if we haven't gone too far down the "here's a big stick and I'm going to enjoy self-righteously beating you with it - because it's all your own fault so I feel justified in criticising you" thing with smokers. I also think it's a symptom of an unhealthy decrease in our tolerance of each other generally. Or summink I dunno.

NHS prosthetics are pretty rubbish, esp compared to what you can get privately. Heavy and hard to walk in. It's a shame. My friend had to pay a fortune for her limbs - I was so shocked. Sometimes you can get the NHS to pay, but children outgrow limbs so fast - around every nine months at first, apparently.

Tech, the study by Cohen et al 1998 and Stapleton et al 1999 are the most recent comprehensive publication of estimated cost to the NHS.

However, things have moved on somewhat since then.....

It is also widely recognised now that the costs were vastly underestimated, in view of research that realised the effects of passive smoking related diseases, for example; an estimated 19% of childhood respiratory problems are attributed to (passive) smoking, and/or maternal smoking during pregnancy causes an increase in health problems for children under the age of 5 years, more so in children under 2 years of age. They've also discovered (2002)that 1000 non-smokers die each year through smoking related diseases.

They have also since estimated that smokers are more likely to need blood pressure and diabetes treatment.

So, I'm not convinced....not yet, anyway.

When my son had orthorics he grew out of four sets in one year! He was two years old at the time. I imagine that a 16 month old baby would grow even faster.

I imagine that prosthetics are a bit like NHS hearing aids in that they are poorer quality that what you get privately. Certainly for hearing aids the sky is the limit in what you can choose to pay for.

Prehaps the same is true for prosthetics. Hard budgetting decisions have to made.

Private prosthetics are a world away from NHS ones, and the cost is astronomical tbh.