Our underfunded and over-used NHS is desperate to save money at any cost. The latest dictate to emerge is to stop what it calls minor surgeries that includes 17 procedures deemed unnecessary, of no real health benefits and perhaps do more harm than good, as any surgery, no matter how minor it may be, always carries some risk and it includes infection caught in hospital and mistakes by junior doctors working under pressure.
These unnecessary or risky procedures that may come under blanket ban, include surgeries for snoring, back pain, tonsillitis, minor hernias, keyhole surgeries for many painful ailments but mainly arthritis. As so many decisions are driven by need to save money, not many believe the dictate put out by NHS.
While most people feel, rightly or wrongly that some of the procedures available under NHS, such as plastic surgeries to boost one’s ego, sex change, lips and breast reduction and enlargement, as well as treatment for obesity and fertility should not be available or at least rationed when people with life threatening illnesses such as heart problems, cancers, dementia, chronic arthritis and many more have to wait a long time before they are treated.
This is especially confusing to patients, as there is no standard rule; some NHS Trusts providing such treatment routinely while others ban it altogether. It is estimated that this will save NHS £200 million, a petty cash considering NHS’s overall budget while others feel that some of the vast and ever bulging Overseas Aid Budget should be diverted to NHS. Our people should come first when queuing for cash from the Treasury!
When NHS was introduced in 1948, the annual budget was just £500 million, as people used NHS wisely and it was the last call, not the first call, as it is today. Moreover our life-span was much shorter, obesity; dementia and such other health problems were unheard of at the time.
Let us wish NHS and every one working in NHS, the world’s largest employer, a happy 70th birthday. They richly deserve any praise and affection we have for our beloved NHS.
Kumudini Valambia
By email
