The NHS Under Pressure

[poliphilo]

They let my father in law out of hospital yesterday. I'm not sure he wouldn't have benefited from a couple more days inside, but we understand they needed his bed for someone sicker.  They've been housing him on the stroke ward- even though he hasn't had a stroke- because that was the only place they could fit him in.

I've no complaints about his treatment; the Royal Oldham is a fine hospital with a fine record; but the system is clearly under considerable pressure. Elsewhere, according to what I see on TV, it's beginning to break down. So how's the NHS going to cope when the generation of the baby boomers starts flooding through its doors with the illnesses of old age?

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Not so long ago all but the very strongest of us would have been carried off by diseases and conditions that are now treatable long before we reached old age. Modern medicine is amazing- but it creates all sorts of moral dilemmas. Is access to the most advanced- and expensive- medical treatment a basic and universal human right? It's a question we are doing our best to evade.

[oakmouse]

Very true. Also, when should people be allowed to refuse treatment even if that refusal means their death? We've taken away people's most fundamental personal choice: how to handle their illness and death. We may be forced to give it back.