It’s an Emergency: Take Me To Heathrow!
The Crisis of Confidence in Britain’s Healthcare.
Which are the five worst hospitals in the UK? According to a Health Commission survey published in May, they are all in London: Homerton (Hackney), Mayday (Croydon), Barking (Essex), North Middlesex and (at the very bottom) Ealing. Not particularly reassuring if you happen to live in those areas. You have the right to specify (if you are in an ambulance) where you want to be taken but that only works if you are able to sit up and issue instructions. The British public are these days not at all keen on becoming in- patients. They suspect , with some justification, that they might end up with something far more serious. There is an estimated 45% possibility of anyone being admitted to a UK hospital catching the MRSA ‘superbug’ – the EU’s fifth highest after Portugal, Malta, Cyprus and Romania. The annual NHS (National Health Service) budget is now more than £110 billion. That amounts to £946 ‘per head’ compared to £1400 (France), £1600 (Germany) and £2500 (USA).
Last year around 50,000 Britons went abroad for medical treatment, 75,000 are predicted to do so in 2008 and over 200,000 by 2010. Despite the costs, ’medical tourism’ has become big business and is actively promoted by countries such as India, Singapore and Thailand. In contrast, only 1% of Germans feel the need to travel elsewhere for treatment. In 2007,the NHS reluctantly financed overseas operations for 1,000 British patients facing ‘ unreasonable delays’ in the UK. ‘Polish Business News’ has reported that their nationals here often prefer to return home for medical and dental attention. This also applies to many other foreign residents in Britain – even though they are entitled to register with their local surgery and obtain free access to a ‘GP’ (General Practitioner). Two-thirds of NHS staff would apparently ‘not be happy’ to be patients in their own hospitals – not exactly encouraging news for anyone who might have to go there.
This won’t, however, soon be a problem for heavy drinkers & smokers or the ‘obese’. The Government is controversially planning to withhold treatment from people who lead ‘unhealthy lives’, in order to reduce NHS expenditure. 55% of Britons avoid going to the doctor at all. Even making an appointment can often be difficult: Some surgeries insist you book by phone the same day. As everyone else also has to do this,
the lines are always busy. GPs are under constant stress, so your time with them is usually strictly limited. Many doctors ban patients from discussing more than one health concern at a time. If you have a headache, stomach pains and a sprained ankle, you have to choose one of these and then make further appointments to resolve the remaining two The pressure on the NHS is also due to the 16 million occasions a year (11 million with GPs & 5 million with hospitals) when patients, without providing any advance notice, fail to turn up for appointments.
57% of UK doctors ,however, are content with one vital aspect of their work- their pay – compared to 44% in France, 29% (Italy), 18% (Spain) and 12% (Germany). Some British GPs earn £250,000 pa, one in ten at least £150,000 and half get £100,000 pa. Doctors worldwide have a reputation for illegible handwriting, not looking after their own health and prescribing paracetamol to cure almost anything. The American actor, Walter Matthau, once joked that his GP had given him six months to live. On hearing he couldn’t pay the bill, the doctor gave him an extra six months.