Posted on 06/15/2011 8:03:01 PM PDT by SanFranDan
FULL TITLE: The breast cancer patients TOO OLD to save: Thousands are being denied surgery by 'ageist'
Mastectomy is the most effective treatment
Elderly women are being denied life-saving breast cancer surgery that is routinely given to younger patients, alarming research reveals.
Some doctors look at a patient’s age in their notes – and decide on a treatment plan before they have even met them, experts warn.
Their study, which provides evidence of ageism in the Health Service, found that 90 per cent of breast cancer patients aged 30-50 are offered surgery to remove tumours, compared with 70 per cent of those in their seventies.
Even women in their 50s are less likely than younger patients to have an operation.
Cancer specialist Dr Mick Peake said: ‘I’ve seen evidence of ageism when doctors are approaching the issue. Some take age as disproportionate evidence, often when they’ve never even met the patient.
‘I’d like patients and relatives to bang their fists on the table and say, “Why aren’t we getting this treatment?”,’ added Dr Peake, of the National Cancer Intelligence Network, which carried out the research.
An operation to remove part or all of the breast is the most effective treatment for breast cancer.
Patients are only offered chemotherapy or radiotherapy if the cancer has spread to such an extent that surgery is impossible.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Slippery slope. Next it’ll be to fat or too ugly or not enough charisma or wrong eye color.
Yet we are the ones with the barbaric health care system? Bookmarked for the next time I see a lecture from a Euro or Brit (to the extent there is still a difference).
Because eventually governments grow too powerful and wind up killing their citizens.
It's called democide.
I have two questions:
1.) What other reasons will Great Britain come up with for denying treatment?
2.) Is this coming to the U.S.A.?
Not to mention that Obamacare will not pay for baseline mammograms until you are 40. The death panels are on the way!
Anyone that thinks this isn’t the case in any other place where you have government run health care, to include our own federally administered programs like the VA is fooling themselves.
Government run will still cost you money. Government run will still mean a rationing of resources. Government run will simply mean that YOU the consumer will no longer have the power of the wallet/purse.
However, there is a significant number of people that want to believe in a free lunch even though they all know deep down inside it’s a lie!
notice the “problem” they see with it. Ageism!?!?! Nobody even questions the entire socialized system, which MUST lead to rationing. There is no other possible outcome. They think that medical care is exempt from the laws of economics. Anyone found that free lunch yet?
It is a slippery slope. The worst thing being that in this country it will probably come down to political affiliation.
From what I understand, they ran out of money and turned everything over to some private insurance company that has been banned in ten of our states. It is something like Unum? At least that is what someone has written to me who has done very extensive research into what is going on with the health care system over there. I have never heard of the company and don’t understand their system, so have a hard time following the pages and pages and reams of information she has sent to me.
There is a little bit of a different argument to be made.
My Mother was diagnosed with Breast Cancer at age 85. Her Dr. said if she had not had 5 kids starting at age 18 and breast fed all of us for over a year, she probably would have died at a young age from it.
She had the surgery and they determined it had spread. Before the surgery, Mother was not sick. After the surgery, she never was the same and died a year later. I really wish they had just given her the medication and let her live. They say it spreads slowly in the elderly.
Initial growth may indeed be slow but once a tumor has metastasized it will quickly spread via the lymphatic system.
Regards,
GtG
As to #2, it’s already here. More males die of prostate cancer every year than women die of breast cancer. Yet in many cases they’re told [from what I’ve read]in sum and substance that the cancer is slow growing, they’ll live to an old age before it kills them [if something else doesn’t first], so there’s no need to aggressively treat it. And nothing is done.
Too Christian.
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“notice the “problem” they see with it. Ageism!?!?! Nobody even questions the entire socialized system, which MUST lead to rationing. There is no other possible outcome. They think that medical care is exempt from the laws of economics. Anyone found that free lunch yet?”
Exactly.
(And I wouldn’t be surprised in the future under Obamacare if certain groups (i.e. traditional Democrat voters) get favorable treatment when the rationing kicks in.)
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