What is wrong with private healthcare?
If you beleive the propaganda spewed by the BMA (the doctor’s union, they were responsible for getting their membership the largest pay increase in public sector history and catapulting their members to the very top of the earning table globally! Yes even higher paid than American doctors, and they work less hours!) Unison and others. The provision of private healthcare is evil. Hold on, for the BMA it is only evil when it could increase the efficiency or quality of care received by patients in the NHS. Let’s face it, that would be a disaster for their members private practice which have thrived for decades on the back of an underperforming public system. Could we really expect a surgeon who has been used to telling a patient, “Well the wait in the NHS is many months, but, I could see you privately next week if you are prepared to pay.” Thank god we have an equal system that does not differentiate on your ability to pay like the nasty Americans.
How many of you have had that conversation with your doctor? Or already know that the long wait, and now, the distinct possibility of death while receiving routine care from a hospital infection, would sensibly push you towards a private system where you won’t have to wait, there are private rooms, the chance of infection is either very slim or none at all, and the staff are polite and responsive. The answer is about 10% of the population because they can afford it.
Unison and the BMA would like to keep it that way. They have very privileged seats at the table because their members are in “the know”. They know which hospitals, nurses and doctors are any good. They know how to work the system so they don’t have to wait. When it comes to the relatively uninformed patient population, we can’t have care paid for by the state in a private facility. They apparently only offer good services that can’t be criticised when they are enriching BMA members.
I recently visited friends in the west country. The person’s in question father had recently been operated on in a new private facility in Shepton Mallet. He had a knee replacement. His daughter had heard through neighbors that the facility existed, was available to NHS patients and was free. Her neighbor informed her that the local NHS had not been forthcoming in advertising the fact the care was available and she had not been aware of it until her local care trust called to offer her Mother a place there for hip surgery. her mother was on the local hospitals waiting list and had been told it could be a matter of months, possibly a year before she was offered a place for surgery. When the care trust called she accepted the place and had her operation two weeks later. It went without a hitch. The care was outstanding and the facility was bright and clean, the staff friendly and helpful.
My friends father called his local GP to ask why he had not been given the option of going to the new hospital. They replied that they didn’t know the doctors there very well and were reticent to send patients. He relayed the story of his Daughters friend and told them that was good enough for him, he had waited two years on an NHS waiting list for his last knee replacement, was becoming a greater burden on his family and wanted to get on with it. They grudgingly gave him a number to call at the local care trust who told him that the GP should have given him that choice of hospital during his visit, that he should not had to call and ask to be seen. They offered him a surgery date for his knee operation within 3 weeks.
I spoke to him while we were there and he enjoyed the experience of being treated in a hospital he could not normally afford care in. He said the doctor who saw him was as knowledgeable as his NHS consultant and more attentive. he is back up and active once again leading a far more productive life than before. he is angry that the NHS decided for him that he should have to sit bedridden in his home when there wasn’t any need.
Unison and the BMA don’t want patients to experience this type of care as it undermines their power base and begins to help fix the broken NHS by shinning a light on the very poor care and access that is offered by the traditional NHS. If the NHS becomes a functional system that does what is best for the patient and not what is best for the healthcare workers union, they will have nothing that will attract members to an already outdated and irrelevant group of organisations. Also, the consultants will begin to see their million pound private practices begin to erode, and they might just have to start scaling back on the expansion plans for their third homes.
But we the patients should keep our mouths shut. Not complain, be happy with our lot in life and allow ourselves to continue to be the political football they use to maintain the status quo even if it means we sit in our bed for two years, a burden to our families, with little or no quality of life for ourselves. Unless, of course, we can find the money to jump the queue. Thank god we don’t have a two tiered system!
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