Has healthcare become irrelevant ?

Rising complaints

What a surprise that it’s taken so long for the Echo to report on the alarming increase in complaints being made to Health Boards in Wales.  With the amount of patients waiting more than three months for treatment appointments, it’s hard to see how this vast number could be reduced.  Facilities  ( beds etc) have been drastically reduced and access to services is far too long following the murderous rationalisation and centralisation – all for the prpose of saving money.  If you hear  any twaddle about making the services better of making them ‘fit for purpose’ ( whatever that means ).  Also, ignore phrases such as ‘unprecedented demand’ (on services ), ‘patients too lazy to see their GP’, ‘ambulance service in turmoil’, ‘Accident and Emergency services understaffed’, ‘delay due to the lack of beds’. Please treat these as B.S. ( business statistics, of course ! ), because all these problems are caused by NHS Wales, with the approval of the government.

Also, please take note of the growing trend towards ‘blaming the patient’ – usually for living unhealthy lifestyles ( even forgetting that a small bowl of salad costs more than a Big Mac ) and being irresponsible enough to become ill !  So, the implication of this is that, all of us poor citizens who are forced to look for cost-of-living savings ( because of the government’s imposed austerity measures ), are adding their saved money to the cost bourn by the National Health Service.  Crazy ? – of course it is but, any plausible explanation for blaming the people for the ( supposedly ) high costs in healthcare is crazy !  Whatever you believe, there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that we’re all being screwed to the deck by our government by being used as scapegoats.

If we examine the figures of rising complaints against the Health Boards, increases of up to 188% are slowly coming into line with the unacceptable rises in waiting lists.  Let’s be realistic, if the increases were to be held at current levels, how will the health boards be able to eliminate theses waiting lists, when existing hospital resources are already operating at maximum capability ?  Either the resources have to be increased immediately or the NHS has to sacrifice any forced cost savings by buying any spare resources that may exist in other countries.  From the viewpoint of the patient, this would mean more lives saved, even though relatives would not be able to afford to visit their loved ones.  From the viewpoint of NHS Wales, such a plan would be self-defeating because the increased costs would eat up the cost savings made which created these waiting lists.

As I say, whatever your opinion, it is inarguable that the government / NHS Wales has put itself in an impossible, irresolvable  position, with the inevitable consequence of their managerial incompetence being a massive increase in deaths of patients awaiting life-saving procedures.  I make the point that time is finite here, with no practical way of avoiding the inevitable increase in mortality rates – regardless of the manner in which these figures are calculated, or presented to the public.

Does anyone disagree with my analysis in this or other undisputed posts ( by the government, NHS Wales or their solicitors, Morgan Cole who have a monopoly on providing legal services to all Welsh public services ???                  R. W.