Annals of Government Medicine

In Great Britain, patients who seek private treatment are penalized by the National Health Service: “NHS bars woman after she saw private doctor.”

A woman has been denied an operation on the NHS after paying for a private consultation to deal with her severe back pain.
Jenny Whitehead, a breast cancer survivor, paid £250 for an appointment with the orthopaedic surgeon after being told she would have to wait five months to see him on the NHS. He told her he would add her to his NHS waiting list for surgery.
She was barred from the list, however, and sent back to her GP. She must now find at least £10,000 for private surgery, or wait until the autumn for the NHS operation to remove a cyst on her spine. …
Following a Sunday Times campaign in 2008, the government ordered the NHS to stop withdrawing care from patients who received additional private treatment or drugs. Cancer sufferers were being barred from further NHS treatment after buying potentially life-saving medicines not offered by the health service.
Whitehead’s case, which has shocked her local Labour MP, reveals that patients who go private in despair at long waiting lists still risk jeopardising their NHS treatment. Department of Health officials admit it remains official policy.

Government medicine is bad medicine. Why anyone would want to dismantle our health care system and replace it with the disaster that is socialized medicine is beyond me.

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