"Treat Yourselves," NHS Tells UK Patients!
The meltdown of the UK's NHS is hitting unbelievable lows. Now, patients with conditions such as asthma and arthritis are being told, "Treat yourselves." From the story:Instead of going to hospital or consulting a doctor, patients will be
Right. These type of things are always sold as being best for those being deprived of necessary services and support.
encouraged to carry out "self care" as the Department of Health (DoH) tries to meet Treasury targets to curb spending. The guidelines could mean people with chronic conditions:
- Monitoring their own heart activity, blood pressure and lung capacity using equipment installed in the home.
-Reporting medical information to doctors remotely by telephone or computer.
- Administering their own drugs and other treatment to "manage pain" and assessing the significance of changes in their condition.
- Using relaxation techniques to relieve stress and avoid "panic" visits to emergency wards.
Gordon Brown hinted at the new policy in a message to NHS staff yesterday, promising a service that "gives all of those with long-term or
chronic conditions the choice of greater support, information and advice, allowing them to play a far more active role in managing their own condition".
The Telegraph editorializes with righteous rage and gets the gist of where things are heading, including not treating patients who lived unapproved lifestyles:
This tyranny, of course will not be imposed on people whose dangerous lifestyles are not looked upon with askance. Thus, don't expect HIV or STDs to come under the non-treatment regimen--nor should it. Back to the editorial:What this seems to amount to in practice are the Government's rights to refuse treatment, and the patient's responsibilities to live up to what the state decides are model standards. There is apparently to be a clear warning that those who adhere to unhealthy habits such as smoking or failing to take regular exercise may be refused NHS care.
But hey, in the UK they are pouring millions into research into making human/animal cloned embryos. Priorities, after all, are priorities.Bizarrely, while more is to be expected of patients by way of self-reliance in terms of taking responsibility for their own treatment--thus helping to defray NHS costs--they will still be forbidden the most obvious form of self-help, which is to pay for some supplemental treatment (which would help even more substantially to reduce NHS costs).
Labels: NHS Collapse
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 6:33 PM
4 Comments
4 Comments:
Let's see, self-treatment for minor illnesses... self-management of pain... administering our own drugs... avoiding panic visits to the emergency room... Hey! That's how my grandparents approached health care! Except the UK expects its citizens to pay government for the privilege.
It's like that television commercial where a surgeon tells a guy over the phone, "Okay, now, take the knife and make an incision between your third and fourth ribs..."
It seems to me that many of these functions could be done by a certified nurse practitioner or physicians assistant under doctor supervision. But self treatment could be dangerous--particularly since it could lead to not seeing a doctor when that is precisely what is needed.
Let's look at another issue: preventative treatments that need a doctor's special touch to handle, such as well-woman and well-baby checkups.
Did you know that my insurance company (in America, in case anybody's curios) only *recently* added Well-women/Well-baby checkups to its approved list? Before that us chicks had to shell out $250 to get ourselves taken care of! And yet, preventative care will save thousands of dollars in the long run if we don't have to deal with cancers, cysts, all those nasty things that cost the insurance company a lot more to handle than just giving us PAP smears and mammograms.
Now, here's the UK going to a "treat yourself" attitude becuase it saves money to keep people out of the doctor's office or hospital. In this kind of setup, how likely is it that the government and health agencies are going to encourage women and men to get preventative treatments as needed? Common citizens are being told to handle their own pain regulation (a nurse practitioner could handle that more effectively, and it hurts less when someone in the know does the actual administering). What's to keep those same citizens from putting off having preventative care performed? After all, it's not like they need to be treated for anything, so they don't see the risk in avoiding it, espeically if they can't really afford it. And a society that puts emphasis on saving money, rather than saving lives, won't prod its citizens enough to spend limited money to get these treatments. Women and kids won't get their necessary care because they will feel like they're being pressured to take care of themselves, instead of getting necessary checkups.
And what about ER visits? They're being encouraged to stay out of emergency rooms if they are only coming in for "panic" reasons. When I slicked my thumb open on the meat slicer, Krogers hauled me out to the emergency room so I could get my thumb stitched and get a tetnus shot, as well as to ensure the wound was completley cleaned. My boyfriend at the time (who was nice enough to drive me to the hospital and back), looked at the cut on my thumb and told me he got hurt like that all the time on his job (he did welding and carpentry) and he usually just washed them out with soapy water and let them heal naturaly, explaining why his arms were scarred up. His decision was based on the machisimo attitude, but imagine being in a country where you're forced to consider whether a cut like this is an "emergency" or just a "panic situation." (Having not had a tetnus shot in about six or eight years it was better that I went, to avoid getting lockjaw. Most people wouldn't consider that.)
What about people who are under aged and need an adult to make a decision for them? Imagine if you will that a mother has a child who got a bloody nose that won't stop bleeding. She's tried everything from ice to pinching it, and nothing works, and it's been going on for a while. Is hers a "panic visit" because she's an emotional mother? Can she be turned away? In the incident in question, the child ended up having something up his nose that was digging into his flesh that kept it bleeding, and every time she put pressure on it she hurt him worse (kids do the wonkiest things, but he's the first one I met that shoved a block up his nose...). Without emergency room treatment his mom would never have dislodged it, and the wound could have become infected, at the very least.
They leave *way* too much open for interpretation. And without something visible to suggest that there's a problem (such as in preventative treatments, tretments for minor injuries that could be major, or treatments for problmes where the cause is not known or not visible), people are going to hesitate before making the decision to go to the hospital/doctor's office, and perhaps hesitate too long.
The idea of using relaxation techniques to avoid panicky visits to the ER, if applied to asthmatics, is highly irresponsible. People, even grown folks, can die during asthma attacks.
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