One testimony after another has shown that Tory ‘go private’ NHS policy has succeeded… in harming women.
The BBC has run an amazingly myopic article about how women have been forced to pay for private gynaecological treatment because NHS doctors have let them down.
The reason the NHS let them down is simple: the Tories, in government, de-funded the health service in order to force these women to pay a large amount of money, simply to see the same specialists their taxes have already paid for them to access.
The plan – as we have known for years – was to increase the use of private healthcare. This would not only boost the profits of the companies providing it but it would allow the Tories to claim that publicly-funded health doesn’t work and the UK should switch to the kind of private health insurance system that bankrupts around 600,000 US citizens every year.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
Most of the cases in the BBC article are of women who were persistently fobbed off by GPs who refused to run the tests that were needed to prove there were serious problems. Could this be because they have been forced to work within limited budgets by Tory policy, making it impossible for them to provide the kind of care their patients need? Yes it could.
So two women were told their endometriosis (look it up) was “just IBS” [irritable bowel syndrome] and one was told she should suck on a Polo mint. Another was given antibiotics for a presumed infection when in fact she had a cyst the size of a brick, weighing 8lb.
After finally being correctly diagnosed, two of these women were told appointments for NHS care would not happen for many months – with cancellations apparently a common occurrence. So they sought private treatment, paying up-front to see the same doctors they would have seen on the NHS.
The results were that one woman has had a hysterectomy – that is, her womb had to be removed, another will have to have the same operation to remove her womb and possibly parts of her bowel, and the third is left with permanent, life-affecting pain along with nerve damage that she must treat daily.
It could be argued that the NHS doctors who failed to diagnose their conditions correctly in the first place were incompetent. It could certainly be argued that these women have suffered permanent, avoidable changes to their lives because of the failure to provide adequate treatment in a timely manner. Neither of these outcomes is acceptable.
But I tend to believe that these outcomes were forced on both the patients and the GPs (if not the specialists) by Conservative government health policy.
It was the determination of Tory health secretaries like Andrew Lansley, Jeremy Hunt, Matt Hancock, Sajid Javid, Steve Barclay, Therese Coffey and Victoria Atkins to choke off resources for GPs and make “going private” attractive to specialist doctors, rather than supporting their NHS work, that has harmed these women – whose lives have been forever blighted as a result.
Now think about the current debate on health-related benefits, in which both Tory and Labour politicians are saying too many people have been signed off work because of health issues when they should just suck it up and get back to work.
How many of those benefit claimants might actually be living full, active and productive lives if they hadn’t been forced to suffer the inadequacies of a health service that was being choked to death by greedy politicians who either had shares in private health, received donations from private health, or simply supported the principle of making people pay a fortune for care or denying it to them forever?
The women in that BBC article were made to suffer unnecessarily because of political greed and opportunism.
Why did our so-called “public service broadcaster” let them off the hook?
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Tory ‘go private’ NHS policy has succeeded… in harming women
One testimony after another has shown that Tory ‘go private’ NHS policy has succeeded… in harming women.
The BBC has run an amazingly myopic article about how women have been forced to pay for private gynaecological treatment because NHS doctors have let them down.
The reason the NHS let them down is simple: the Tories, in government, de-funded the health service in order to force these women to pay a large amount of money, simply to see the same specialists their taxes have already paid for them to access.
The plan – as we have known for years – was to increase the use of private healthcare. This would not only boost the profits of the companies providing it but it would allow the Tories to claim that publicly-funded health doesn’t work and the UK should switch to the kind of private health insurance system that bankrupts around 600,000 US citizens every year.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
Most of the cases in the BBC article are of women who were persistently fobbed off by GPs who refused to run the tests that were needed to prove there were serious problems. Could this be because they have been forced to work within limited budgets by Tory policy, making it impossible for them to provide the kind of care their patients need? Yes it could.
So two women were told their endometriosis (look it up) was “just IBS” [irritable bowel syndrome] and one was told she should suck on a Polo mint. Another was given antibiotics for a presumed infection when in fact she had a cyst the size of a brick, weighing 8lb.
After finally being correctly diagnosed, two of these women were told appointments for NHS care would not happen for many months – with cancellations apparently a common occurrence. So they sought private treatment, paying up-front to see the same doctors they would have seen on the NHS.
The results were that one woman has had a hysterectomy – that is, her womb had to be removed, another will have to have the same operation to remove her womb and possibly parts of her bowel, and the third is left with permanent, life-affecting pain along with nerve damage that she must treat daily.
It could be argued that the NHS doctors who failed to diagnose their conditions correctly in the first place were incompetent. It could certainly be argued that these women have suffered permanent, avoidable changes to their lives because of the failure to provide adequate treatment in a timely manner. Neither of these outcomes is acceptable.
But I tend to believe that these outcomes were forced on both the patients and the GPs (if not the specialists) by Conservative government health policy.
It was the determination of Tory health secretaries like Andrew Lansley, Jeremy Hunt, Matt Hancock, Sajid Javid, Steve Barclay, Therese Coffey and Victoria Atkins to choke off resources for GPs and make “going private” attractive to specialist doctors, rather than supporting their NHS work, that has harmed these women – whose lives have been forever blighted as a result.
Now think about the current debate on health-related benefits, in which both Tory and Labour politicians are saying too many people have been signed off work because of health issues when they should just suck it up and get back to work.
How many of those benefit claimants might actually be living full, active and productive lives if they hadn’t been forced to suffer the inadequacies of a health service that was being choked to death by greedy politicians who either had shares in private health, received donations from private health, or simply supported the principle of making people pay a fortune for care or denying it to them forever?
The women in that BBC article were made to suffer unnecessarily because of political greed and opportunism.
Why did our so-called “public service broadcaster” let them off the hook?
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (bottom right of the home page). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
5) Follow Vox Political writer Mike Sivier on BlueSky
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:
The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
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