Cataracts, hips, knees and tonsils: NHS begins rationing operations

Cataracts, hips, knees and tonsils: NHS begins rationing operations

www.independent.co.uk

Hip replacements, cataract surgery and tonsil removal are among operations now being rationed in a bid to save the NHS money.

* Hip and knee replacements only being allowed where patients are in severe pain.

* Tonsillectomy (removing tonsils) only to be carried out in children if they have had seven bouts of tonsillitis in the previous year.

According to responses from the 111 trusts to freedom-of-information requests, 64 per cent of them have now introduced rationing policies

(visit the link for the full news article)

These single payer systems are fantastic. Now I can see why Obama was interested in implementing one here.

I am of the opinion that there should be significant rationing at end of life, on any insurance as I don't believe it reasonable to hit an insurance pool with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cost to extent someone already in miserable shape another 1-2 years. If they want that treatment, they should pay for it.

That being said, waiting until a child has tonsillitis 7 times in a year prior to removing the tonsils is absolutely savage. It also having the kid take a hit at school as he/she will be out for at least a month.

What is severe pain? No way to tell.

These systems are rife with abuse. The pain in the ass will get the treatment. People will come into the clinic frequently to "prove" they are in pain and get put on the list.

The business the free market folks will say about the US health care system is nonsense. It sucks. As someone who has attempted to deal with it on multiple levels, including right now, it sucks.

It sucks but its better than these single payer, government run systems and that is certain

www.independent.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

Im not sure this is 'conspiracy news' , it just seems to me that the NHS are trying to make the best of an overburdened free health care system. Its not ideal but these are hard times.

the NHS are a compleat joke they wont spend money on life saving drugs or ops but they will fund a mans sex change??


now thats the reason its going tits up its sick!

Originally posted by gremlin2011
the NHS are a compleat joke they wont spend money on life saving drugs or ops but they will fund a mans sex change??


now thats the reason its going tits up its sick!

You are drinking your hater-aide anyway. Like they say...prove it or it didn't happen.
Whose sex change was publicly financed and who is missing their lifesaving drugs?
I don't hear any complaints from people missing drugs or operations.

I could say the same to the OP. I mean show me someone who was refused an operation or drug they need because of rationing and I may believe this is something to worry about. Right now, just ratcheting up the hate.

reply to post by newcovenant


here you a link or two for you pal

www.dailymail.co.uk...

www.timesonline.co.uk...

reply to post by dolphinfan

I am of the opinion that there should be significant rationing at end of life, on any insurance as I don't believe it reasonable to hit an insurance pool with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cost to extent someone already in miserable shape another 1-2 years. If they want that treatment, they should pay for it.

OMG. I just can't believe there is a possibility my kids would grow up in a world where people are reduced to thinking like this. Figure out a way to pay for it. Raise taxes if you have to but do it..
I don't care what you have to do but figure out a way to pay to save these lives.
Where are those right to lifers now? Where is the picket line complaining about the deaths?

reply to post by dolphinfan

I am of the opinion that there should be significant rationing at end of life, on any insurance as I don't believe it reasonable to hit an insurance pool with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cost to extent someone already in miserable shape another 1-2 years. If they want that treatment, they should pay for it.

Thats a disgraceful way of thinking. I hope not all Americans have as little respect for their elders as you do. In the UK we at least try to repect the fact that after a liftetime of working and paying taxes an old person has the as much right to free health care as anyone else.

reply to post by gremlin2011


Oh you are right. Thanks for the link. You reminded me...
All of this kind of "health care" talk has GlaxoSmithKline's panties in a wad as your news story clearly shows.

And many more of the major pharmaceutical players as well.
And really - that's who we're fighting for isn't it?

They need an unlimited number of cancer ridden bodies to sell to (with insurance companies as their accomplices) and pump full of these toxic chemicals don't they?

Mind you, we are working with the FDA to approve strange new additives, drugs and chemicals in our food stuff everyday so it isn't like we aren't doing everything we can to increase causes of cancer. We, as a nation, are genuinely trying to give big pharma all the sick patients they could possibly want to treat.

So we are playing it forward, but seriously somebody has to stop pharmaceutical companies from pushing poisonous chemicals on people -telling them they will save their life when the opposite is true. Many of the drugs in question are removed from usage FOR A GOOD REASON, they kill more people than they save.

reply to post by dolphinfan


I agree - on the surface this seems unjust and downright FUBARred. But.

Fact is, turns out lots of diseases like cancer, dementia and more can be spread by medical equipment. The culprits are prions - and standard decontamination and sterilization procedures don't work on prions. Even the latest chemical concoctions are unreliable. ...Surgeons can replace things like scalpels, and use a new (hopefully uncontaminated) one for every operation, but scopes and such can't even go in the autoclave (which doesn't really work on prions anyway).

...Research shows that virtually any invasive medical procedure results in a prion disease within 10 to 20 years - and that does NOT take into account all the so-called "conformational" and "protein mis-folding" conditions, diseases and disorders that involve different disease-causing prions. For example:

Surgery Linked to Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease

…with a few exceptions, the risk of having contracted the sporadic form of CJD manifests itself at least 20 years after having undergone an operation.

…We might, therefore, ask ourselves if other types of motor neuron diseases can be transmitted through surgery and be latent for decades, such as those where risk factors, particularly physical professions and activities or certain sporting activities, for example, which are more likely to lead to surgery, have already been indicated.

…the most conclusive pattern that the study presents, … is that the onset of CJD occurs approximately 10 years after an operation on the retina with reused equipment.

Huge effort and investments have been made for decades trying to solve the problem - but have yielded little more than marketing, PR and a focus on "positive thinking."

Automated decontamination of surface-adherent prions.

At present there is no routinely available decontamination procedure in washer-disinfectors to allow the reliable inactivation and/or elimination of prions present on reusable surgical instruments. This means that is not possible to provide assurance for preventing iatrogenic transmission of prion diseases. We need effective procedures in prion decontamination that can be integrated into the usual routine of reprocessing surgical instruments. ...The system could potentially make an important contribution to the prevention of iatrogenic transmission of prions.

...Hate to say it, but this "rationing" of surgeries will work to our own benefit.

Re: tonsils - tonsils have been recognized for a long time as the body's 'prion jail' - our bodies grab the prions floating around in our cells and tissues, and use the tonsils to 'quarantine' them. There's a recurring controversy about whether it's better to remove the tonsils (and the prions), or leave the tonsils so the body has its 'prion jail.' ...The official position flips every 10 or 20 years; one decade tonsil surgery is in, the next it's out.

reply to post by dolphinfan


Yes but compared to America we also don't have 30 million+ uninsured people who won't get ANY treatmeant. The NHS isn't perfect and the state of our economy and debt isn't helping, but I prefer it to the alternative, having my life in the hands of corporations whose main concern is profit.

reply to post by gremlin2011


Extortionately priced medicine is entirely the fault of the greedy pharmaceutical companies who charge such outrageous prices. The NHS is great and the only people who are even mildy opposed to it are on the extreme fringe of British society. Healthcare is a right, it is a service NOT a business.

reply to post by PhoenixOD


I don't think it is disgraceful in the least. If someone has a terminal disease, say stage 4 brain cancer and the best diagnostic analysis and prognosis determined by multiple doctors, ideally at multiple medical facilities anticipate the person to live between 9 and 18 months, why are we spending several hundred thousand dollars to prolong it to the full 18?

These folks (and I have personal experience here) do not spend the time with any enjoyment or pleasure. In and out of the hospital for surgery, or toxic treatments, lengthy recovery times with a few weeks of feeling decent only to have to go through it again. What happens? They die in 12 months, exactly when they anticipated he would die to begin with. Far better to make the person comfortable, manage their pain and let nature take its course.

The practice of throwing every known and experimental treatment at someone who has a terminal condition in some effort to prolong their life is not compassionate in the least. What it is is an experiment. An attempt to bolster the medical establishment's resume. If the medical establishment wants to use human beings as lab rats, putting them through hell, then they should pay for it and it should not burden the general insurance pools. Similiary if someone wants to subject themselves to that treatment they should pay out of pocket for the treatment.

Its not disgraceful in the least. Its humane

reply to post by dolphinfan


I feel very sad that you feel that way dolphinfan, luckly the UK people have more compassion and respect for thier elders than you do. Letting the medical industry take all the last remaining money a person has worked hard for in their lifes's is disgraceful.

Maybe if your country stopped spending so much on weapons and wars and spent some on the old people then there would be more inheritance to pass on and your overall levels of debt might start to fall a little.

Originally posted by dolphinfan
reply to post by PhoenixOD

 

I don't think it is disgraceful in the least. If someone has a terminal disease, say stage 4 brain cancer and the best diagnostic analysis and prognosis determined by multiple doctors, ideally at multiple medical facilities anticipate the person to live between 9 and 18 months, why are we spending several hundred thousand dollars to prolong it to the full 18?

But that's not the kind of illnesses and treatments your OP is talking about. These are much more routine and can greatly benefit the quality of lives for otherwise healthy people.

Also, with the above comments, whether you will admit it or not, you are advocating the "death panels" all the obamacare shills said would never happen. The kind of agencies that can and no doubt will begin to ration care for purely monetary reasons. The economy gets worse, more people will be condemned to an earlier death.

LOL. "What a broken system!"

Says the Americans without even a broken system to complain about. With people going bankrupt over medical problems. With people relying on the emergency room because they can't afford health insurance or because their crappy health insurance offers no real coverage.

LOL.

Originally posted by dolphinfan

Its not disgraceful in the least. Its humane

But it should also be the person's own choice and not yours, or some faceless government bureaucracy based on "costs" alone.

There are also human costs ...

Originally posted by incrediblelousminds
LOL. "What a broken system!"

Says the Americans without even a broken system to complain about. With people going bankrupt over medical problems. With people relying on the emergency room because they can't afford health insurance or because their crappy health insurance offers no real coverage.

LOL.

We don't have your broken system because many have been fighting very hard to keep the people in the U.S. that want to use your broken system as a model from implementing it.

And what about the UK people who paid their taxes and went along with the system there assuming it would be there for them if they ever needed it only to find out that now it isn't there for them?

From their point of view explain the difference between having no health insurance because the person couldn't afford it and having no insurance because the government couldn't afford it - when they told everyone they could.

To the person, they still are without treatment either way - except one is based on a government lie ...

Originally posted by centurion1211


Also, with the above comments, whether you will admit it or not, you are advocating the "death panels" all the obamacare shills said would never happen. The kind of agencies that can and no doubt will begin to ration care for purely monetary reasons. The economy gets worse, more people will be condemned to an earlier death.

Ah, yes, 'Death Panels'. Still clinging to that, eh?

And how does the current health care system save people in a time of need? Are we not already 'rationing care' for those who can afford it?

Currently, millions of Americans are uninsured. The plan you are trying to criticize would offer them more than they have now. How would that be 'rationing'? Having no apples, and then having a couple apples, is stil an improvement. And yet you want to say its not as good as ten apples??

You try and frame this as if the government will force people to go through them for healthcare, and pretend that the people who will get healthcare under the recently-passed and not-near-implemented plan may have that care 'rationed'. Even though they currently have no care. And so you somehow think it is better to have no health care, and rely on the emergency room, or just mending your broken arm or pancreatic cancer at home with twigs and berries!! No wonder you speak of 'death panels', if you actually drew out your theory much it would collapse in on itself.

People who currently have their own private health care would not be effected. The plan in question would give care to those unable to afford it currently. It wouldnt effect the quality of care for who choose to buy their own. I don't think youve thought this out very well.

Originally posted by centurion1211


We don't have your broken system because many have been fighting very hard to keep the people in the U.S. that want to use your broken system as a model from implementing it.

The American model of health care recently passed and not yet implemented doesn't resemble the UK system whatsoever.

And what about the UK people who paid their taxes and went along with the system there assuming it would be there for them if they ever needed it only to find out that now it isn't there for them?

Again, that is not how it works. I'm guessing you have never left the country, or your parents insurance?