Posted on 04/03/2011 12:43:05 PM PDT by Nachum
Cancer patients are being denied a pioneering treatment that offers their only hope of survival - even though millions of pounds have been spent on the technology behind it. Doctors referred Lesley Whiting, 56, from Sussex, for a robotic radiosurgery procedure called Cyberknife, which is widely used across the world, but only became available on the NHS last year. (Snip) But NHS bureaucrats refused to fund the treatment, which costs the health service around £10,000 per treatment- despite the fact almost £9 million has been spent buying the robotic technology for three NHS hospitals.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
The ‘thinking’ behind buying the equipment is to have it there to claim they have the procedure available.
This increases any government funding available without that messy business of actually using it.
Socialist medicine at it’s finest.
“costs the health service around £10,000 per treatment- despite the fact almost £9 million has been spent buying the robotic technology for three NHS hospitals.”
Maybe if they used the technology, the per treatment cost would decline.
But what if I choose as an individual to take the treatment?
Ladies and gentlemen, this is our future if we don’t fight socialized medicine. Bureaucrats decide whether or not your life is worth fighting to save.
In socialized medicine, your choices do not count for much. You had your choice, once, maybe, a long time ago, at the ballot box.
Talking about weird bookkeeping (why does a session with the machine cost somewhere around US $20,000 if the NHS already owns a bunch of them lock stock and barrel), or is it that the existing machines are all busied up and the wonderful NHS doesn’t want to get any more?
Such is how things work when someone other than you controls the money for your healthcare.
Hospital stay, doctors, anesthesiologist, ...
Administering a aspirin costs ten bucks.
You can do that. You just have to come up with the money.
Socialized medicine hurts the poor that need expensive treatments FAR more than it hurts the rich in England. Nice of the socialists, isn't it?
Do you support government provided health care in the United States?
Should there be any limits on the costs of a procedure when the government (really you and me) are footing the bill for the poor?
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