Posted on 06/14/2003 6:21:17 PM PDT by gcruse
Soldiers forced to buy private treatment for war injuries
By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent
(Filed: 15/06/2003)
British troops injured in war are being forced to pay for private medical treatment or face long delays for operations on the National Health Service.
A staffing crisis in the Defence Medical Services (DMS) means that more than 10,000 soldiers - the equivalent of 15 infantry battalions - are currently not fit for frontline duty. That figure rises to more than 17,000 when all three services are taken into consideration, according to Government figures given to the Liberal Democrats.
Senior officers have told ministers that unless they receive an emergency injection of cash, large sections of the Army will be declared unoperational because of the number of troops waiting for surgery.
One soldier, who was injured on active duty in Afghanistan, has now been told that he faces a 12-month wait for a knee operation unless he is prepared to pay £2,000 for private treatment.
Another soldier who recently returned from Afghanistan after serving with the International Stabilisation and Assistance Force (Isaf) has been told that he will have to wait six months before he can see a specialist about his damaged ankle.
He may then face a further year's wait for an operation. He has, however, been advised that if he were to go private, he could see a specialist immediately and have the operation within three weeks.
The soldiers asked not to be named because military personnel are not allowed to speak to the press without authorisation.
The Ministry of Defence has spent more than £5 million on private health care in the last few years to reduce the number of servicemen and women waiting for operations. However, only a fixed amount of money is available to each unit, and commanding officers are being forced to ration the private treatment.
Service personnel whose injury prevents them from carrying out their duties are classified as "medically downgraded". These troops cannot be deployed on military operations and are unlikely to be able to undertake courses which have any physical element.
They can have their pay reduced and may be passed over for promotion until fully fit. A sergeant in the RAF wrote to his service's newspaper, the RAF News, saying he was faced with the choice of paying for a private operation or being unable to perform his duties for a year and a half.
"I have been medically downgraded for the first time in 18 years' service. Although it is temporary, I nevertheless cannot be deployed and I have limitations imposed on my normal duties.
"I find this whole situation unacceptable and as a result I have decided to pay for private treatment."
Soldiers claim that waiting up to a year for NHS treatment would deny them active service or promotion.
It is thought to be the first time in British history that troops are having to pay for surgery for injuries sustained during military service.
Officers are further pointing to the fact that numbers will increase dramatically in the aftermath of the war in Iraq.
Bernard Jenkin, the Tory shadow defence secretary, described the situation as an outrage. "The fact that our servicemen and women are having to pay for medical treatment is nothing short of a national scandal.
"Troops are meant to get priority treatment on the NHS. On Monday I will be demanding a statement from the Government asking why the MoD and the NHS are failing our soldiers." The DMS was meant to treat the Armed Forces after the nation's military hospitals were closed.
Senior officers claim that the crisis has been caused by bad morale, a lack of qualified medical staff and the effects of a savage cost-cutting programme undertaken in the mid-1990s which resulted in the closure of all military hospitals.
For non-emergency operations, soldiers now simply join NHS waiting lists.
A senior officer said this weekend: "How on earth are we meant to recruit for the Armed Forces when soldiers, sailors and airmen and women face the ridiculous possibility of having to pay for their own operations or spend months on a waiting list? It is a shocking and shameful state of affairs. There will be many servicemen and women returning from the Gulf carrying an injury which will get progressively worse and they will eventually need an operation but they will have to go on a waiting list.
"They then face the prospect of having to wait for up to 18 months and accept that their careers will stagnate - or pay for the operation themselves."
A spokesman for the MoD said that it accepted that a problem existed with troops facing long waiting times for surgery. He said a fast-track process was in place for units about to deploy on active operations.
This alone shows that government involvement usually results in poorer care rather than better. I remember the conditions before medicare and the access and costs involved were much better at that time. The improvement in the technology has been much greater but this could have been accomplished in the grant and research system without controlling the rest of the medical system.
Maybe. The article says they are having to wait for the National Health Service, which is their regular civilian medical system. I am not taking a shot at their civilian system per se, but that the fact that if they have a military system, it is clearly underfunded if the guys are being shuffled off to the civilian system, and then being told that war casualties must take their turn, first come first serve, among the other hospital clients... its disgraceful.
While our VA hospital system certainly wins no prizes, our system for caring for military casualties fresh from the battlefield is, as far as I know, quite good.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.