A bit of a rant about my recent NHS experience...

j9mcl

somethingcorporate wrote: »

I would suggest you try going private, the experience is so much better than the NHS.

Expensive, yes. But you get what you pay for.

I would suggest that you get a reality check.

floralaura

I had a similar experience back in Feb..I was left in horrific pain, not eating for 10 days and being unable to keep even water down without vomiting for almost a week. All Drs did not spot my issue, I was diagnosed with a pulled back, then a kidney infection..was even told off for calling the out of hours DR out one evening when I knew that I was dying, I could almost feel it its so hard to explain now but I felt it come over me and just knew. The next day I was rushed to hospital after finally seeing a DR who knew what they were doing..I was jaundiced, dehydrated, near sepsis, with a blocked bile duct and a infected gall bladder. My OH hadnt noticed the change in my colour as he was with me24hrs a day over this time but I was yellow, both my skin and eyes. It was then a course ov IV antibiotics and fluids and morphine to get me fit enough for them to remove it. Then during surgery I was burnt and suffered a very bad burn that was the infected for over 6 weeks and now is a awful black scar.
However, had it not been for the NHS my 22mth old may not be here today..
I am more thankful for that than angry for my issues. By all means write to them, make them aware that your care was less than it should..but for the help of others, not for the purpose of compo etc..

MamaMoo_2

FloraLaura, don't get me wrong, I'm not interested in any sort of compensation. What's the point, what's done is done, and I'm on the mend now, so other than a few extra days of pain, I'm not really worse off.
I just get a bit peed off that medical professionals didn't notice that, like you, my skin and eyes were yellow, an observation which, accompanied by a couple of other bits of information (which they had!) would have led immediately to the diagnosis of obstructive jaundice.
I had my ECRP (not very nice!) yesterday, and feel so much better today. All I have left now is the removal of my gallbladder, and then this won't happen again.
I just hope that other people who are in pain etc aren't ignored or fobbed off with false information. I was pushy because I knew something wasn't right, but so many other people would probably just have taken the first lot of advice they were given, and ended up in a more severe position.

somethingcorporate

j9mcl wrote: »

I would suggest that you get a reality check.

Why? my experience of private healthcare has been nothing but perfect, completely at odds with my (and judging from this thread many others) experience of the NHS. Some things are not worth wasting money on (fancy cars / houses) but my health is priceless so I'd be happy to spend whatever it takes keeping my loved ones happy and healthy. Even if it comes at the expense of every shiny bit of tat I have ever owned.

j9mcl

somethingcorporate wrote: »

Why? my experience of private healthcare has been nothing but perfect, completely at odds with my (and judging from this thread many others) experience of the NHS. Some things are not worth wasting money on (fancy cars / houses) but my health is priceless so I'd be happy to spend whatever it takes keeping my loved ones happy and healthy. Even if it comes at the expense of every shiny bit of tat I have ever owned.

Wow, how incredibly condescending!! If I were you, I would consider myself to be in an extremely privileged position to be able to afford private healthcare. The vast majority of the population of Britain are going through some very tough times at the moment and are struggling to feed themselves and keep a roof over their head.

Do you suggest that we all go down the route of private only healthcare as in the USA? That would be a very sorry state of affairs indeed in my opinion. People are dying in America (supposedly one of the wealthiest countries in the world) because they do not have money to pay health insurance.

How do you suppose that a family on NMW, working every hour god sends, pay for private healthcare? Stop paying the rent, stop eating and stop putting the heating on? Remember we all can't be high earners and where would we be without all the fantastic people who probably earn NMW wage or just above - cleaners, binmen, shop workers, carers etc?

Is that enough of a reality check for you?

pmduk

somethingcorporate wrote: »

Why? my experience of private healthcare has been nothing but perfect, completely at odds with my (and judging from this thread many others) experience of the NHS. Some things are not worth wasting money on (fancy cars / houses) but my health is priceless so I'd be happy to spend whatever it takes keeping my loved ones happy and healthy. Even if it comes at the expense of every shiny bit of tat I have ever owned.

The private treatment I have had in the past was no better than the excellent NHS treatment I received recently in Salford Royal Hospital.

WhiteHorse

mountainofdebt wrote: »

I have come to the conclusion that medicine, regardless of what we are told, is not an exact science - its a game of opinions and probability.

How many of the much trumpeted advances in medicine of the last 50 years have benefited the great mass of the population?

Very few.

ladylouise62

My Mum had the same problem with getting the NHS to accept that it was Gall stones and not the flu, and yet we managed to work it out as the most likely thing and we had no previuos knowledge of the illness. It seems that Mum had all the indications including likelihood because of age/sex/weight etc, yet no-one would accept there was anything worth treating even when she went yellow. Even once she had been initially treated and went ill and yellow again we still had to fight to get any treatment. It's another bad episode in a long line of bad experiences with the NHS for my extended family and friends.
Yes, it's still better than never getting any treatment without money (like the US), and there will always be that one case that slips through... but I should not be able to quote such a long list of things as bad as that, and I can.

BTW, I can't afford to pay for private care (and no, somethingcorporate, I'm not spending money on holidays and electrical goods instead of caring for my health, I really don't have any money over and above the basic bills). I considered getting cover a number of years ago when I was earning more and the company I was with at the time had a special offer, but it was going to cost 12% of my take-home and excluded a large range of likely illnesses... so I didn't.

NCISROCKS

WhiteHorse wrote: »

How many of the much trumpeted advances in medicine of the last 50 years have benefited the great mass of the population?

Very few.

Really! Let's look at the first half ish of your 50 years

1962 First oral polio vaccine (as an alternative to the injected vaccine).

1964 Firstvaccine for measles.

1967 First vaccine for mumps.

1967 South African heart surgeon Dr. Christiaan Barnard performs the first human heart transplant.

1970 First vaccine for rubella.

1974 First vaccine for chicken pox.

1977 First vaccine for pneumonia.

1978 First test-tube baby is born in the U.K.

1978 First vaccine for meningitis.

1980 W.H.O. (World Health Organization) announces smallpox is eradicated.

1981 First vaccine for hepatitis B.

1982 Dr. William DeVries implants the Jarvik-7 artificial heart into patient Barney Clark. Clark lives 112 days.

1983 HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is identified.

1992 First vaccine for hepatitis A.

1996 Dolly the sheep becomes the first mammal cloned from an adult cell (dies in 2003). 1998 First vaccine for lyme disease. 2007 Scientists discover how to use human skin cells to create embryonic stem cells.

Read more: Medical Advances Timeline — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0932661.html#ixzz1e6VELTFs

corbyboy

somethingcorporate wrote: »

I would suggest you try going private, the experience is so much better than the NHS.

Expensive, yes. But you get what you pay for.

The main reason that private care is so much "better" than NHS care is because they pick and choose what they treat.

There is little emergency private medical care, no private A&E departments and no private equivalent of 999.

You experience of private care is irrelevant in this situation. If you are very ill over the weekend, as the OP was, your only choice is to contact the out of hours GP, go to A&E or dial 999.

Private care is great for orthopedic surgery, cataracts, cosmetic surgery and other "easy" stuff. The NHS is left to deal with all the messy stuff that the private industry won't touch.