The NHS
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Good idea or bad idea?
Feel free to discuss this in a wider context.
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Dear Remus,
A wonderful idea, but we have to pay for it. Ask any American about private health care and they will tell you what it means not to have an NHS, and how many life threatening conditions, such as cancer, are almost uninsurable.
I have a dear friend who is in the second year of remission from lymphoma. She has had excellent care and many tens of thousands of pounds of chemotherapy, and without the NHS would not be here. My mother died of leukaemia, and she too had excellent care that prolonged her life significantly over expectation. There is much that can be done to improve the service and to reduce waste, but I hope 'free at the point of use' will continue. I for one would be prepared to pay more in taxes and hope never to use the service. Attitude is often dependent on experience, and mine has been good.
The greatest of life's gifts is good health, and so I wish you all 'good health'.
Regards,
Bob -
An NHS that stands for good health care and best medical practice would be great.
An NHS that is under pressure to prescribe certain pharmaceutical drugs because they are cheaper or because they are manufactured by companies who are subsidising NHS managers and consultants incomes is, in my opinion, just one of the sad realities. The NHS is widely opposed to natural medicines and treatments because there is no money in it for them. If they spent more time teaching people how to stay healthy they wouldn't be so desperate for money and could help the people who really need it.
Rant over.
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I assume from the replies that NHS relates to 'national health system' or something like that. (Please be more specific in first postings --- not all countries use the same acronyms so for many here "NHS" may be meaningless. Or maybe it means "non-heterosexual").
I'm from Canada where I grew up with a "free" public health care system. When I was recently in California for the basecamp I had a conversation with the driver of the airport shuttle van. He told me he recently obtained health insurance to cover his young family (wife and two kids) and that it costs him $800/month. I don't know how well he was paid but in Canada someone with his job would likely earn no more than $30,000/year. $800/month struck me as a huge amount of money for most people in the service industries. He told me he had no health insurance when his kids were born. The bills for the births were $15,000 each and he noted that was just two days in the hospital. I can't understand how someone in his financial circumstances could ever pay such bills. I'm left assuming many such bills never get paid but I don't know.
Here in Canada our health system is far from perfect. Many procedures can involve long waiting lists (whereas in the USA if you have the money you could get them done right away). Yet if you have a serious problem here, say cancer, you will get treatment and my impression is it is good care. The rich guy and the poor guy will get equal treatment under the system.
All our health care in Canada is not free. My family has private 'Blue Cross' insurance (say $100/month) to pick up things like dental not covered by the 'free' system. Such insurance pays a portion of dental costs & prescription costs. Getting sick here (or having your teeth kicked in) will still cost you some money but for most it is not the bankrupting kinds of costs Americans seem to face.
Regards, Ross
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@unknownuser said:
The NHS is widely opposed to natural medicines and treatments because there is no money in it for them.
The NHS is widely opposed to natural medicines that just don't work.
@unknownuser said:
If they spent more time teaching people how to stay healthy they wouldn't be so desperate for money and could help the people who really need it.
If they spent more time teaching people how to stay healthy they'd be even more desperate for money. There's practically no one in the civilised world who doesn't know the problems that smoking, drugs, poor diet and lack of exercise cause, but just preaching at people isn't going to make them change.
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Ross, sorry, i was referring to the national health system here in the UK. Its a very widely used and easily recognisable acronym here in the UK, but i dint think about its use in other countries.
@unknownuser said:
The NHS is widely opposed to natural medicines that just don't work.
Indeed they dont work in a traditional way, but in a lot of cases, just taking something (whatever it might be) can help a lot of people. Its pretty cheap as well.
Im not sure about the specifics, bu i believe there is a homeopathic NHS hospital in or around London. I believe it has quite a high success rate (in treating patients) purely because the doctors actually spend some time talking to the patients.
Overall i think this is one pf the biggest problems with the NHS, its big and bloated and inefficient. This really needs to be sorted out as its a huge drain on resources that could very easily be used to much better effect elsewhere.
having said that, i still love the NHS. Free healthcare for everyone is a brilliant idea, even if it does have its downsides.
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@remus said:
@unknownuser said:
The NHS is widely opposed to natural medicines that just don't work.
Indeed they dont work in a traditional way, but in a lot of cases, just taking something (whatever it might be) can help a lot of people. Its pretty cheap as well.
having said that, i still love the NHS. Free healthcare for everyone is a brilliant idea, even if it does have its downsides.
I think a problem with the NHS is that the normal aproach to any health problem is to throw tablets at it (which all have side effects) I think that spending more time talking to patients and thinking outside the box a little would improve treatment. Also, the NHS seems to be pretty poor at dealing with mental health problems.
I'd much prefer the NHS to private health care though - I'd probably be dead or hugely in debt without it!
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