Of course I for one am not offended at Terpe's post. Being retired almost 4 years (after 35 years working in UK and Malaysia) I can take an interest in health matters, and possibly explain, without necessarily defending, how illness is diagnosed and treated in the UK compared to the Philippines.
It was completely alien to me, working in diagnostic medicine, to be constrained by cost where tests were needed for an accurate diagnosis and hence the best treatment. Certain antibodies to prove the type of cancer, for example, can be very expensive, but essential. Almost all of my work was for the NHS or Universities, not private. How I would have hated the knowledge that the patient or relative(s) had to pay direct - either if they couldn't afford it, OR if they could, with the temptation to charge for unnecessary investigations.
Terpe has simply expanded, with dramatic impact, on what I said in the start to this thread.
Many doctors in the UK, trustworthy in my opinion, have doubts about the planned radical reforms of our NHS. That's a whole separate topic. However, accepting the NHS needs to be more cost-effective, many GPs do not wish to manage budgets in addition to caring for patients. Doctors can't be unaware and immune to the cost of screening, diagnosis and treatment. But an NHS required to compete for patients against other providers is to my mind one step too far. Health can NEVER be treated like other items in an open market place. It's easy to "cherry pick" conditions like hernias and removing simple skin lesions. But for serious illnesses the management of patients MUST be free at the point of delivery. Medical audit should ensure best practice, NOT the ability (or otherwise) to pay. That is a fundamental explanation for the differences in life expectancy between our two countries.
