Saturday, August 11, 2007
NHS sends hundreds of expectant mothers abroad for maternity services
UK's Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Secretary, Norman Lamb, MP, Norfolk, does some investigating into how the NHS shipped 269 pregnant women abroad for maternity care. Says Lamb,"The exact cost of sending these women abroad last year are unknown but data from the pilot scheme to send NHS patients abroad suggested that the costs are comparable to the cost of having treatments done in the private sector. Patients were also referred for overseas treatment for a variety of other treatments including speech therapy, hearing aids and blood tests."And what does the NHS have to say about this? "Your local NHS Trust or PCT selects patients who they think might be interested in being treated abroad. This is based on a number of factors, such as the number of people waiting for a particular treatment."
Means that either those 269 expectant mothers wanted to go abroad, or that suddenly, a whole bunch of women in the UK decided to get pregnant and overwhelmed the NHS. The way Norman Lamb puts it, it sounds like the NHS rounded up these pregnant ladies and shipped them off, kicking and screaming to some gulag overseas. I think it was more like a luxury, with the women probably begging the NHS to allow them to go abroad, combining maternity care with some quality time at their birth place.
Don't see what's wrong with that, but....I'm sure that Norman Lamb, MP, knows better than me....No, I'm serious. He does really care about health services. From his biography, "He has built a strong reputation in Norfolk as a campaigner for improved health services. He has been a critic of cuts in bed numbers and has highlighted the resulting unacceptable level of cancelled operations. As an MP his work on local issues includes adjournment debates on: orthopaedic waiting times in Norfolk"
In a related development, NHS patients in Norfolk county are now able to choose BUPA hospital, through the Choose and Book system, which has drastically reduced waiting times for specialized treatment.
Does not mean, though, that the NHS is ticking along like a well oiled machine. After all, there are 35,000 Britons who are travelling abroad for dental surgery every year, and the number is expected to double by next year. And even this number is relatively small, if you consider the fact that nearly a million patients cannot get appointments on the NHS for their teeth. You might want to get the NHS to sponsor a medical tourism sortie to this great dental surgeon in Costa Rica....A living legend.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]