“[T]his is a really blatant attempt to save money by leaving people in pain. … [I]t particularly worries me how far they [the cuts] disadvantage the elderly and the vulnerable. We cannot return to the days of people waiting in pain for years for a hip operation or having to pay for operations privately.”—Katherine Murphy, Patients Association
The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) will be rationing health care to save billions of pounds, while the government promises to protect front-line services. The “incredibly cruel” cuts intend to save money by denying care to the dying. The “astonishingly brutal” widespread cuts include:
- Restrictions on some of the most basic and common operations, including hip and knee replacements, cataract surgery and orthodontic procedures.
- Plans to cut hundreds of thousands of pounds from budgets for the terminally ill, with dying cancer patients to be told to manage their own symptoms if their condition worsens at evenings or weekends.
- The closure of nursing homes for the elderly.
- A reduction in acute hospital beds, including those for the mentally ill, with targets to discourage GPs from sending patients to hospitals and reduce the number of people using accident and emergency departments.
- Tighter rationing of NHS funding for IVF treatment, and for surgery for obesity.
- Thousands of job losses at NHS hospitals, including 500 staff to go at a trust where cancer patients recently suffered delays in diagnosis and treatment because of staff shortages.
- Cost-cutting programmes in paediatric and maternity services, care of the elderly and services that provide respite breaks to long-term carers.
Back home, the NRA’s champion Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently assured his leftist base that there would eventually be a public option in ObamaCare.
“We’re going to have a public option. It’s just a question of when.”—The darling of the NRA told a Netroots gathering during a Q&A session.
To ensure socialized medicine and the leftist takeover of America, be sure to renew your NRA membership before the November mid-term election.
For more on the UK rationing story, see Axe falls on NHS services by Laura Donnelly
I.M. Kane
