British NHS is the envy of the world, although many elderly patients who find it difficult to see GP without long wait, Consultant appointments being cancelled time and again and have to endure severe pain, in urgent need of hip replacement, goes on a long waiting list, may differ and rightly so, as NHS do have many pitfalls. Administratively, our NHS is the worse managed health service in the Western world, a honeypot for medical tourism, in need of quantum improvement. It costs some £300 million treating patients who may not be entitled to receive free medical care on NHS. Yet successive governments have failed to introduce NHS entitlement card that would prevent misuse of NHS.
Shortages of nurses and junior doctors is a disgrace to the fifth largest economy in the world, unable to train such medical personals at home, mainly due to shortages of training places at universities that results our NHS raiding developing countries like India, Philippines and South Africa, few among many nations, of their trained staffs who are badly needed on the home front. This is a theft of the worse kind, stealing from the poor to feed the rich, morally unjustified, without guilty feeling!
Only a couple of years ago, it was confirmed that England had eliminated measles, this dreadful disease for the first time in living memory. Yet NHS has now confirmed that there were 440 laboratory confirmed cases recently and there is a threat of outbreaks in Europe, in particular in countries like Romania, Bulgaria and Italy which may spread to Northern Europe which on most part is measles free zone!
Measles mostly attack teenagers, especially those who missed out on their MMR vaccination during childhood, due to parents’ fear that MMR may cause autism, categorially repudiated by medical experts. They are particularly at risk if they travel to countries with ongoing measles outbreaks.
Measles is an infectious disease. Parents are reminded to vaccinate their children, at least one year before they start school, a congested place where the disease can spread fast. Some even advocate drastic action to bar children who have not been vaccinated from attending schools. But the best way forward is to educate parents and general public, GPs can play an important role, as they are well trusted by parents. Unfortunately GPs have neither time nor inclination to enter the fray unless government is willing to increase the funding to cover the cost.
Kumudini Valambia
Via Email
