Posted on 12/30/2007 5:21:26 PM PST by merry10
Some hard-of-hearing patients in England are having to wait more than two years for an NHS hearing aid.
The Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID) used the Freedom of Information Act to discover just how long the waits were. It found that ten trusts were not treating patients within a year, in spite of the Government’s target being 18 weeks.
The worst offender was Kingston upon Thames, southwest London, where patients had to wait 125 weeks for an aid after first seeing their GP.
The average wait was 22 weeks in the 99 primary care trusts (PCTs) across the country that responded to the request. Another 53 failed to reply.
The shortest wait was four weeks; 66 of the 99 trusts provided treatment within 18 weeks.
The longest waits - all more than a year – were in Suffolk (78 weeks), Gloucestershire (72), Tyne and Wear: Washington Health Centre (68), Ealing (67), Havering (64), Tyne & Wear: Sunderland Royal Hospital (62), Shepway (58), Mid Essex (56) and South Tees (54).
The RNID said that 39 per cent of new patients in England wait for more than a year to get their hearing aids. Brian Lamb, for the institure, said: “If you struggle to pick up every word, hearing aids are a lifeline to work, friends and family.
“Despite government assurances, an 18-week target is a distant dream for thousands of people waiting over a year for their first hearing aid, who are battling isolation and depression because of their hearing loss.
A Department of Health spokes-woman said: “We acknowledge that audiology waiting times in parts of the country are too high, and that is why we recently published a national framework which sets out the tools the local NHS needs to transform this service.”
ping
BINGO! BTW they have NO dental care under NHS, IIRC.
Meanwhile, many Brits are moving to Florida to get REAL health care.
I try to help a lot of parents of newly diagnosed deaf and hard of hearing kids. One complaint is that their insurance does not cover Hearing Aids...but most times, the audiologist will work with the family on a payment plan. Many wonder why the “government” doesn’t do something about it. Here’s their answer.
youbetcha - golly, what a “wonderful” thing that would be... :-(
what?
Sociaized Medical care is soooooo good. We Must have it here is the US. < / puking sarc
What's so magical about hearing aids that these people have become convinced they need to 'wait' two years to obtain them just because someone working for the State said so? These hearing aids are items. They are items that people want. They are regularly manufactured by other humans. If the people who want those items were willing to pay those other humans for them, it is likely that someone would be willing to supply them to said people, without any "wait" whatsoever.
For some reason this possibility doesn't seem to cross the mind of the vast majority of people once they become inured to "national", "free" this or that.
The idea that their (in this case) health care is "free" is similarly stupid. It's not true that these people are getting hearing aids for "free"; they are paying for hearing aids by waiting in a queue lasting two years and suffering those two years in silence. I don't know how much hearing aids cost but if they could slap a hundred bucks or three on the table and walk away with a hearing aid tomorrow, isn't it possible that's a better tradeoff? Doesn't this occur to anybody? I know, I know, that's truly thinking outside the box....paying (gasp) actual money for the goods and services you desire? Barbaric.
No, it's better to suffer in virtual deafness for two years. That's the humane way.
It's lovely that they have a "framework" but unless you can stick that framework in your ear it doesn't actually do the patients much good, does it?
Here is a market that can be addressed by a technology that is widely available and relatively cheap. Only a government could screw that up.
Actually, that thought does occur to most people living under nationalized systems. That is why those nations usually outlaw the independent sale of such products. You wouldn’t want people with means having an unfair advantage, would you? /tu
There are dentists in England?
For an excellent analysis of socialized medicine, read Thomas Sowell's Applied Economics.
Government run services including health care involve waiting, cost shifting, and poor service. In a rational world, one would tradeoff waiting time against cost such as for package delivery. With health care, the leftists have convinced the masses that health care should be free. Of course, there is no free lunch so the result is waiting, cost shifting, and poor service. The marketplace has been replaced by the political process. I think that most people cannot understand basic economic principles so socialism with its guaranteed outcomes are more appealing. Socialism cannot guarantee any outcomes other than waiting, cost shifting, and poor service.
Jebus, the target is 18 weeks?? Wonder what they do for diabetics or heart patients?
Maybe the government is hoping some of these folks will commit suicide or die in order to reduce health costs?
So when you get a hearing aid, is it the one you need now or the one you needed two years ago?
Granted. This is why there should be a black market. Or people ordering them from abroad. If these waiting times are as widespread as the article makes it appear, and getting a hearing aid is as important and life-changing as one would assume, then one would expect a significant fraction of the people alluded to in the article to turn to the black market, foreign markets, or the internet.
Apparently, they have not. Why? Because they have been indoctrinated into socialist thinking, I can only guess. Hearing aids are part of "health care" and (unlike most goods and services) there's only one way to get "health care": however the state tells you to.
In a way, socialism is like a retrogade set of religious beliefs that some people have, which convinces them to do harmful/wasteful things to themselves. These people are symbolically flagellating themselves to show their piety to their faith.
I offered to purchase a hearing aid for my deaf buddy, who was short of cash. But, he wouldn’t hear of it!
hildebeast care
That seems like a cruel comment, but I couldn’t help laughing.
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