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Wednesday 9 May 2018

MEDICAL ERRORS. Are they bankrupting the UK's National Health Service? Or are we wrong to blame the doctors?

                "Victims of NHS blunders should receive smaller compensation payouts or the “staggering” costs of Britain’s negligence bills will bankrupt the health service, the Justice Secretary has been told. Health service leaders have written to the Government, calling for cuts to payments for patients who suffer devastating injuries as a result of medical errors."

Sometimes I read a news bulletin on health and I cannot believe what I am reading! So I have to re-read it in order to decide whether I have got it right first time. The Daily Telegraph recently published a series of articles on 'medical blunders' and the cost to the NHS in Britain. (If you live outside Britain, continue reading - this applies to any health service anywhere in the world which is dominated by conventional medicine).

So why is it being suggested that victims of medical blunders receive less compensation when they suffer 'devastating injuries'? It is, according to this Telegraph article (1st February 2018), because it is bankrupting the NHS.

               "The controversial demand follows years of rising negligence payments, with current liability now at £65bn - a rise from £29 billion in 2014/15."

This is an extraordinary figure. The total cost of the NHS each year is currently in the region of £110 to £120 billion, so these compensation charges now represents 50% of the NHS's annual budget, and this is all money that has to be taken out of the health budget, and so is not available for spending on patient treatment and care. So what is the solution being offered?

  1. The NHS is calling for a change in the way compensation bills are calculated under the existing law.
  2. This will mean that patients who have sustained 'devastating injuries' will receive less money.
On the following day the Telegraph published an article by Peter Walsh, "Cutting compensation for those maimed by the NHS would be 'hideously unfair' " which stated that the previous article "is a stark reminder of how desperate our NHS is for more investment". Stark indeed, perhaps even desperate, with such a prodigious rise over the last 3 years.

               "It is ignorant and uncaring to suggest that people who have been harmed or have lost loved ones as a result of NHS negligence should forfeit the compensation they need."

               "We also need to remember that avoidable harm, in fact negligent harm has been caused to these patients and the sum awarded to them is based on an assessment of their actual needs as approved by the courts. It is not some kind of windfall."

Yet even this misses the real point. Conventional medicine causes harm because it is, it always has been, and it always will be AN INHERENTLY DANGEROUS FORM OF MEDICAL TREATMENT. 
  • Pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines, on which conventional medicine is totally dependent, are dangerous, even when they are properly prescribed.
  • They are also largely ineffective, and this leads to the need for other inherently dangerous interventions, such as surgery (most surgery would be unnecessary if the drug).
Walsh goes on to outline the reasons for the NHS approaching bankruptcy, and he comes out with the usual culprits - an ageing population - cuts to social care budgets - staff shortages - and lifestyle factors.

Not a single word about the fact that it is the conventional medical system that has produced this level of patient harm and injury.

This is typical of the failure of the mainstream media to do their job -  to investigate and identify where the problems actually exist in health provision. And whilst journalists are content merely to parrot conventional medical mantras (that older people and patient life styles are to blame) there is no chance that the real reason underlying our health problem will ever be identified.

It is also typical of the pharmaceutical industry, the underlying cause of most, if not all the mayhem being caused to patients within the British NHS. They want to be protected from any blame, and the cost of putting right the damage they have cause to patients. 
  • In the USA the pharmaceutical industry is protected from prosecution for vaccine damage by the Federal Government.
  • In Britain, the pharmaceutical industry is protected from paying compensation to its victims by the NHS, via the central government.
It is the failure of conventional medicine that we are witnessing here, but which national governments and the ineffectual mainstream media are refusing to recognise. 

We now need to recognise that pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines are not only (i) ineffective and (ii) dangerous for patients, they are also (iii) extraordinarily expensive.