We Should be so Lucky.

dreamdaisy

A very old but generally healthy man has a hip replacement after, according to the press (so that can be taken with a pinch of salt) a mere month or so of 'discomfort'. I cannot see that even going privately would assure the hoi polloi of such an outcome, are you?

I feel vaguely peeved: naturally a life of privilege has its benefits but this is truly extracting the Michael from the rest of us who have to tolerate deteriorating joints, increasing pain and severe limitations to our lives before we are even considered. DD

daffy2

I have mixed views on this. On the one hand yes it smacks of inequality, but on the other if very elderly patients(his MIL was a similar age when she had a new hip) show a good outcome then it can help bolster the argument for not excluding access to such surgery solely on age criteria.
If hoipolloi can provide the readies in sufficient quantity I would imagine surgery could be made available.
In the grand scheme of things I don't find this as annoying or concerning as the situation whereby those in charge of making decisions about the nation's access to healthcare don't have to suffer the consequences(whether deliberate or ignorantly unintentional) of those decisions.

trepolpen

my views are mixed as well , the old guy is lucky to go private to have this done , he would have been told to go a a waiting list that never ends on the NHS

but anyone having this done is a big operation & got to admire anyone that had it done , and anyone suffering with arthur , just one joint being bad can cause so much restrition & pain . If only everyone could be treated the same on the NHS I would be alot happier

Slosh

I'm with DD on this one, yes he went private but I can't remember seeing him use a walking stick or show any signs of a limp. A month of discomfort? Poor him, the timing seems to have more to do with a wedding that's coming up in May.

stickywicket

Private medicine operates (no pun intended) on the basis of want more than need. Of course the NHS has to be more circumspect as it's using taxpayers money.


It's not an either/or in the sense of either him or us. The question is do we want private medicine or not? The latter has many faults - I wouldn't personally touch it with a bargepole - but ease of access is not one of them.

daffy2

Private medicine operates (no pun intended) on the basis of want more than need. Of course the NHS has to be more circumspect as it's using taxpayers money.

Using taxpayers money to pay for use of private facilities to deal with lack of NHS capacity.
There will always be the demand and need for private medicine, and the NHS is always going to need access to that back-up, but there are questions to be asked about balance, proportion, and best use of finances.
Having not spent time at the House of Windsor I have no idea of the level of discomfort/degree of mobility problems experienced by the individual concerned, but I would be reluctant to base any view on whether or not a walking stick was used, or facial expressions of pain were evident. Gents of his age and temperament are not necessarily known for listening to well meant advice, or admitting to physical failings. The earlier decision to step down from public duties may have been a concession to the situation.

dreamdaisy

It is a tricky one, isn't it? I have no quarrel about the very elderly having treatment, being able to go private is an advantage (but no guarantee of getting a better 'service' as I know from experience) and that might free a space for someone else on the NHS but it's the ease with which he got what so many long for and truly need that rankles.

I remember when I was wondering about new knees my prospective surgeon saying he wouldn't do them on the NHS due to my extreme youth (52) and my being overweight: I asked about private surgery and he said he would still refuse on the grounds of my weight: he obviously didn't do Miriam Margolyes Money, as always, talks. DD

daffy2

The further complication is being subject to individual interpretation/opinion when it comes to decisions about health care. The NICE guidelines explicitly rule out things like weight and age as sole reasons to refuse joint surgery, but they seem to have become the main/only reasons used to control how many such surgeries are performed.
Financially there has always been an element of postcode lottery about what an individual could expect but this has now reached truly silly levels as far as I can see, not helped by budgets for primary care having been devolved down to parish sized areas.
Add in the age-old 'Consultant A will only consider procedure/treatment B for condition C' - regardless of whether that gives the best outcome for patient(and by implication the NHS in most cases), and the wonder is that there are as many good outcomes as there are!