*shakes head*

Sorry, can't think of a sensible comment that doesn't involve so many expletives that I'd have to invent new ones.

Hey, you want to invent new expletives, be my guest.

Well I hope it goes OK. Perhaps the reason they ask the patient for vital medical information like, "Are you diabetic?" could be that this is the best and most reliable way of getting it. Would you trust the staff you have had contact with over the last few months to correctly get it from her records?

I cannot understand the consultant's refusal to refer. Is this even legal?

Private health care may not help. Its OK if you need, say, a replacement hip and you'd like it, oh, say on Thursday instead of 2027 but not a lot of good for a chronic or ongoing condition where really only the NHS has the resources to help.

Best of luck.

For crying out loud...
Oh to hell with it, that's not strong enough, I meant: for fuck's sake....
Best wishes to Vic, I hope she recovers properly from all this as quickly as possible. This is not what either of you need right now.
Speaking of which, aside from these obvious problems, hope you're enjoying Daddyhood.

> Perhaps the reason they ask the patient for vital medical information like, "Are you diabetic?" could be that this is the best and most reliable way of getting it.

No, that's not what they're doing. They're not just asking for vital medical information, they're asking for everything, including name and address. When Vic was transferred from maternity to a medical ward, they even asked her whether she'd ever had any children, and were surprised to discover that she had a newborn. An idiot of a staff nurse (and I'm not just bandying insults around here; most of the nurses have been excellent, but this one was a total eejit) advised her not to move at all due to the danger of the pulmonory embolism killing her, advice which we later discovered is suitable for people who've only just been diagnosed with pulmonory embolism and have only just started their treatment — people who've just been admitted to the hospital, in other words — but wrong for people who, as Vic had, have already been on Warfarin for three days. So she had to call for a wheelchair whenever she needed to go to the toilet for a whole day before she discovered that, in fact, she could walk safely. He also assigned her to a diabetic consultant despite the fact that she was in for something that had absolutely nothing to do with her diabetes — someone spotted that mistake and reassigned her to the pulmonologist the next day.

I'm pretty sure that the information that accompanied Vic from one ward to another when she was transferred was: "Female, pulmonory embolism."


> Would you trust the staff you have had contact with over the last few months to correctly get it from her records?

I would trust them to read records, yes, if they could find them. I don't trust the bureaucracy to keep records or to put them in the right place, and I don't necessarily trust the staff to make the right decisions in the light of those records.


> I cannot understand the consultant's refusal to refer. Is this even legal?

Of course it is. It's probably even noble.


> Private health care may not help. Its OK if you need, say, a replacement hip and you'd like it, oh, say on Thursday instead of 2027 but not a lot of good for a chronic or ongoing condition where really only the NHS has the resources to help.

I think private hospitals have more resources than you realise. And the problem we keep running into with the NHS is their lack of resources. Like, I was referred to a private chiropractor once, for a bad back. He treated me till the back was cured. Vic was referred to an NHS physiotherapist once, for a bad knee. The physio treated her for a predetermined number of appointments. The knee is still bad.

As far as the current shenanigans are concerned, Vic has now been discharged from hospital three times with a condition that would eventually kill her unless she were readmitted and given more treatment. And, come on, we all know why: resources.

It sounds like an absolute mess but there's one thing I'd like to clarify.
Lost of my family are Doctors & to my knowledge a consultant does not just refer you to private practice, the consultant does the actual private consultation/treatment as well.
i.e. if you consultant has decided not to do private work ,whether for 'moral' reasons or because he/she just doesn't want to work more hours than he/she already does then you can't reasonably expect the consultant to do so. All you can expect is a referral to another doctor who will treat you privately.

> if you consultant has decided not to do private work ,whether for 'moral' reasons or because he/she just doesn't want to work more hours than he/she already does then you can't reasonably expect the consultant to do so.

If the reason were number of hours worked, you'd have a point. However, in this case, I happen to know that it's for moral reasons, and I suspect your family will disagree with me when I say that that is utterly appalling.

A doctor has a duty to do the best for their patient. In many cases, regardless of political arguments about whether it should be better, private healthcare is better. Obviously, it's often quicker, and that can make the difference between life and death. There's also a whole raft of research that indicates that stress and discomfort delay recovery, and there's much less stress and discomfort in a private hospital than on the NHS — especially if, say, you've just had a baby and want to be guaranteed a room where that baby will be able to visit you. Consultants are busy people. Getting an appointment to see a new one can take weeks — weeks during which your condition could be worsening.

So, when an NHS consultant takes a deliberate decision never to work privately and therefore never to be able to refer any of his patients to private care, he is deliberately introducing an unnecessary delay to the care of his patients, a delay which he knows may be damaging to their health. And why? Not because of a disagreement about what treatment they should have, which would be reasonable, but because of a disagreement about the mechanism whereby the people providing that treatment are paid. Like I said, appalling.

Consultants also earn very good money. If they're that bothered about being paid by the evil capitalist system, no-one's stopping them doing voluntary work for private hospitals. No, thought not.