Doctors' anger at cruelty to patients (UK universal healthcare)

THE medical establishment is in revolt against Labour's policy of denying National Health Service treatment to patients who pay privately for cancer medicines.

The outcry from eminent consultants and doctors' leaders came as news emerged of two more patients whose NHS care was removed while they were dying of cancer.

Baroness Ilora Finlay, president of the Royal Society of Medicine, said the issue went to the heart of the purpose of the health service.

Finlay's intervention, in an article for The Sunday Times, comes after it emerged that a man dying of kidney cancer had to battle for NHS care because his family followed doctors' advice to pay privately for a drug.

It also emerged that Sandra Baker, a bowel cancer victim, died last year after being denied NHS treatment in her final months. When she paid Â£9,500 privately for drugs, she was hit with an extra bill of Â£16,000 for her treatment. Last week The Sunday Times revealed the case of Linda O'Boyle who died of cancer aged 64 after being denied NHS treatment because she paid for a drug.

Ribeiro said: "I would strongly oppose the denial of life-saving operations to patients based on decisions they had made about how they supplement their NHS care."

The irony about the number of MRI machines is that it was the British who invented the MRI —and now, most of their patients can’t get on a schedule to get one.

But...if they have “private insurance” they get to the head of the line —the NHS folks still have to wait.

In Canada, it’s the same thing. Folks in national health care
have to wait a long time, but if you have private PET (as in cat/dog) insurance, a dog or cat can get an MRI before a human. The reason? For every human who gets an MRI, it’s a cost to their system; for every dog or cat that gets an MRI paid for by private insurance, it’s a payment to them.

How do I know? My Master’s Thesis was on “Should the US Go To a Single Payer System” —man, the stuff I uncovered! And...most of this is on the net.

Want to know how long it takes to get some common surgeries in Western Canada? Click here:

http://www.healthservices.gov.bc.ca/waitlist/index.html

When I was diagnosed with the need for a hip replacement, it took 4 weeks from diagnosis to the surgery —if you look at some of the wait times for the same surgery, you’re talking months and months of needless pain.

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