Ageism is Killing People

A report by a consultant, at the Western General Infirmary in Glasgow, has revealed that middle age patients and pensioners are dying needlessly in accident and emergency units because younger people are being given preferential treatment.

The report, based on a study in 20 of Scotland's busiest hospitals, looked at the history of 11,000 trauma patients between July 1996 and June 1998.

The average age range of people who are not given life saving treatment is between 49 and 54 years!

This presents very clear evidence that age is a factor in trauma patients. 70 year olds have less chance of being admitted to intensive care and resuscitation rooms than 30 year olds.

Liz Duncan, a member of the Scottish Executive of Help the Aged said, "The NHS was built on the value of providing treatment on the basis of need and not age."

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The NHS is a large, inefficient and very expensive nationalised industry, providing some of the worst health care in Europe and the governments latest attempt to save it with money will fail, as it long ago reached the limits of what it can do.

Why won't politicians come clean about it? Fear of losing elections?

Perhaps private medical insurance is the way to go, perhaps not.

The one area where the NHS could really do good work, the treatment of the elderly and alone, is one of the things it does worst!

The state often robs the old at the end of their lives and many elderly folks spend their last days, badly neglected, in public wards and nursing homes.

The NHS is one huge mess and it is time for some clear sighted reason, not sentimentality and unlimited spending.

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A doctor in Kent has set up a scheme. Global Op Ltd., which will enable UK patients, on long waiting lists, to have their
operations abroad.

Patients facing a two-year wait for major joint replacements or removal of cataracts could undergo surgery in France,
Belgium and Holland within weeks.

Although the patients will have to pay, the cost will be significantly less than having the operation done privately
in Britain and it may be possible to claim some of the money back from the government.

Global Op was set up in response to the current state of the NHS, long waiting lists, operations cancelled and people dying.

The cost of surgery on the Continent is up to 50% cheaper than the UK.

French medicine was recently placed number one in the world by the W.H.O. while the UK trailed in at number eighteen!

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