(All site written content is Copyright (C) 2013 by Hugh Hunt)
In the UK demand on NHS accident and emergency departments,
(A&E), is "out of control" and "totally unsustainable",
the head of the Care Quality Commission (CQC), which is the health and social
care regulator, has warned, and added that there should be widespread closures
of hospital beds and investment in community care to tackle the increasing
burden on emergency care. I have to wonder whether this means that there are really
thousands more people who are being involved in serious accidents in recent
years, which would surely be a sad reflection on the hordes of health and
safety zealots who now roam the country seeking out those failing to wear full
protective gear during their waking hours, or counselling safe driving and the
like. Possibly the number of people succumbing to a serious and unexpected
medical condition requiring emergency treatment has inexplicably increased
throughout the country though with all the advice and facilities which are now
available to prevent such unexpected events it should again be unlikely, so why is it?.
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| We're really excited! He's our first patient today with a serious injury. |
The truth of the matter is far more likely to be the fact
that over the last few decades during which children have been treated more
like fragile ornaments than resilient little creatures who need a bit of toughening up as they grow into an adult, has produced a couple of generations
of wimps and hypochondriac s who rush off for hospital treatment when they hit
their thumb with a hammer or cut their finger instead of the fish. The second
development over the same period is that the British population has been
allowed and at times encouraged to think that the National Health Service,
which is already the largest and most comprehensive public health service on
earth, is or at least should be capable of supplying the very latest drugs,
treatments and operations available to everyone on demand, regardless of cost. The
third change, which is equally significant, is in the
outlook of General Practitioner doctors who seem to be more and more inclined
to the view that they now work in a 9 to 5 job and any demand from their
patients outside these hours is down to Hospital A & E departments to sort,
despite the fact that their payment scales expect, and should demand far more
from them.
One day, probably sooner rather than later, a Minister of
Health is going to be faced with the un-enviable task of telling the British
people that their “Sacred Cow” is terminally over-burdened. They are either
going to have to accept the fact that there are finite limits to the extent the
NHS can provide universal health care for everyone, or there are going to have
to be major changes and charges introduced within the service to cover the spiralling
costs. At the moment people read about the latest developments in cancer
treatment or brain surgery which would cost many thousands of pounds to obtain
from a private clinic and just assume that it is their inalienable right to get
the same treatment for nothing on the NHS, because “they pay their taxes”. With
the ever increasing speed of technical and surgical innovation this has
obviously already become an absurd expectation, and becomes more outlandish by
the day.
The time has come when patients are going to have to realise
that the treatments they receive from the NHS is not a God given right but made
available to them through the money raised from the entire community paying
their taxes, the majority of whom thankfully manage to survive without needing
to call upon the health service very often. Rather than take advantage of what
is freely available they should be made aware that its existence gives them a rare
privilege in life which should be treated as such and not used without real
justification. Unfortunately the other side of this coin is that many of the
NHS staff have also come to believe that if a new drug or equipment is
available on the market then it should automatically be made available for them
to use, which is little more than living in Alice’s Wonderland.
We have recently been watching a brilliant TV series called
“Keeping Britain alive, the NHS in one day” which every single person in
Britain should be made to watch, and after which they may have some real idea
of what an amazing organisation the NHS actually is. It undoubtedly isn’t
perfect or infallible but it is certainly something to wonder at in the scope
of the cover it provides, and something which should never be taken for granted
or used as a convenience by anyone. We live in a country, and an area of Europe
where there is nothing available which provides a service remotely comparable
with that the NHS makes freely available. It’s depressing to see how so many people in
the UK seem to have no idea how lucky they are to have it at all, regardless of
its faults and failings, and rather than saying “use it or lose it”, they
should all be made to realise that they need to “use it wisely or loose it”.
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