http://www.dur.ac.uk/…

Patients should recognise they have responsibility for their own health if they want access to free healthcare, says a leading expert.

Durham University’s Martyn Evans makes the comments as the Healthcare Commission publishes its ‘State of Healthcare’ annual report (10 December).

Professor Evans argues that patients should comply with ten moral duties, which require them to look after themselves and others around them, and to use the NHS in a responsible way.

People who neglect their health and the health of others around them, or who misuse the healthcare available to them are draining the NHS scarce resources, says the researcher.

Professor Evans, from Durham University’s School of Medicine and Health, says:

“Widespread behaviour that is adverse to health and to the effectiveness of the NHS, such as binge drinking and missing GP appointments, is on the increase. There is clearly a need to state more clearly the responsibilities patients have to secure the future of the free public healthcare system.

“Right now, far too many people suppose that only doctors have duties, and that only patients have rights.”

The ten moral duties

1. Duty to participate in a ‘healthcare jurisdiction’
2. Duty to uphold his or her own health
3. Duty to protect the health of others
4. Duty to seek and access healthcare responsibly
5. Duty of truthfulness
6. Duty of compliance
7. Duty of inpatient conduct
8. Duty of recovery or maintenance
9. Duty of research participation
10. Duty of citizenship

It’s so easy right? Just follow these 10 obtuse “duties” and magic healthcare fairies will make everything OK.

This problem of theirs is inherent in the system. The individuals perceived cost is lowered and so demand goes up. The supporters of this system wouldn’t support a national “free” car care system because they know if the perceived cost of car maintenance and care was zero that everyone would game the system. Why is healthcare perceived any differently?

What this guy is fundamentally asking for is that people not act like a typical human being. Good luck with that.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/…

The National Health Service is providing dying cancer patients with drugs that are five times less effective than those available privately and is refusing to treat them if they try to buy medicines themselves.

One drug for kidney cancer, routinely available through public health systems in most European countries but not to British patients, can reduce the size of tumours in 31% of patients, compared with just 6% of those prescribed the standard NHS drug.

The growing row over “co-payments” has prompted the government to reconsider the ban. Alan Johnson, the health secretary, has promised a “fundamental rethink” of the policy.

Research presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology found that kidney patients taking the new drug Sutent lived six months longer than those prescribed alpha interferon, the NHS treatment.

The failure of the NHS to make more effective drugs available to cancer patients has been condemned as “unethical” by leading doctors.

A woman with bowel cancer is fighting for the right to pay for a drug that could extend her life long enough for her to spend Christmas with her grandchildren.

Sheila Norrington, 59, a former NHS medical secretary from Maidstone, Kent, has been told by doctors that if she buys the drug Erbitux, which the health service will not pay for, she will lose her state-funded cancer care. Erbitux is the only drug capable of treating her advanced bowel cancer.

Norrington’s husband, Goff, 61, a former sales manager, said: “We have been told that if we pay for it ourselves we will be thrown off the NHS completely and we will need to pay for everything privately. We are devastated. This is not going to cure my wife, but if it keeps her alive a little bit longer, then we would pay for it.”

The couple say that although they could pay for a few cycles of the drug, which costs about £3,000 a month, they could not pay for all Norrington’s care, including scans, blood tests and consultations.

Goff Norrington added: “We have two young granddaughters and this could make the difference between sitting round the table with them at Christmas or not. We think it is deplorable that patients can get this drug almost anywhere in Europe but we cannot get it in the UK.”

A spokesman for Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust said: “We are governed by Department of Health policy on this issue.”

A poll for The Sunday Times shows strong support for allowing co-payment in the National Health Service, with 89% saying that people who buy additional cancer drugs should continue to get free NHS treatment.

Only 5% think allowing co-payment would create a two-tier NHS. Until now this has been the position taken by Alan Johnson, the health secretary.

Ministers had feared that allowing co-payment would upset less well-off patients, but the YouGov poll of nearly 1,800 people shows strong backing across the social spectrum and supporters of all three main parties.

Lee over at MooreWatch.com I think said it all: “This, of course, begs the question.  If compassionate free government healthcare can’t provide, y’know, actual healthcare to patients, and they are forced to paying massive amounts of money to buy their own treatments, maybe the solution to the problem is less free government healthcare and more private sector solutions.”

When will these people realize that the government can not negate scarcity? The only thing that can bring more and better healthcare to the masses is an increase in their wealth and the only way to do that is capital accumulation through free market capitalism.