NHA BANBURY

What will happen if the NHS is privatised?
Former Aynho nurse, Dawn Griffis, now of Vermont USA gives a stark warning of what it's like to have to choose between medical treatment or food on the table.

 

You may ask why someone living in Vermont, USA is concerned or has anything to do with what happens in Great Britain, and especially Banburyshire. Here is why.

My home is Aynho, following many generations living and dying there. Six of my seven years' nurse's training was at the Horton General Hospital. When I was there, the people treated us as 'their nurses' and we felt the same; they were 'our patients'. 

 

The kindness and respect we received from them I have never, in my 57 years' nursing, experienced again. What I have received is the question asked many times 'Where did you train? You are such a good nurse it must have been an outstanding hospital'. I always proudly replied 'The Horton General Hospital in Banbury, England'.

 

I have nursed in the US from 1965-2013 except for four years back in England. I have worked at all levels from staff nurse to Director of Nursing (Matron) in small 19-bed hospitals, large, city teaching hospitals, military, veterans' hospitals and VNA (district nursing).  I had my own satellite clinic (surgery) in the backwoods of Tennessee and on an Indian reservation in Mississippi. From all this I have seen the worst and best of life of medical care to the American citizens.

 

America's 'God', though they wouldn't admit to it, is the 'green back' otherwise known as the dollar.  With it, or with very expensive insurance, you can have the best medical care money can buy. Without it you have less than nothing.

 

Even the rich with good insurance are abused by having unnecessary tests, treatments and surgery done so the hospitals, physicians and insurance companies can make more money. When I have pointed out to them their behaviour is criminal they just tell me 'it is the American way; we have to make money'.

 

I have told them they should be ashamed of themselves but it did nothing. The only way I could get them to make changes or improve care to patients was if I could show them it would either save them money, or make them more money, or both. Otherwise they simply would not agree to it. I actually became quite skilful at manipulating things to work in the patients' best interests. As a nurse, I should not have needed to do that.

 

For the majority of people in the US they either have no insurance or are under insured. Life is hell and most often shortened by many years - many living with severe pain or disability that could have been corrected before it got so severe.

 

I have witnessed people leave emergency rooms (A&E), hospitals, clinics and pharmacies without receiving anything they needed because they could not afford it. Many have actually undergone treatment and surgery under insurance, only for the company to decide it cost more than they are willing to pay. Most of the charges are exorbitant anyway and the family incurs so much debt they lose their homes and all their savings as well. It isn't unusual for an insurance company to deny future cover, or put the co-pay (the amount of 'excess' the patient contributes) so high they are under-insured.

 

As medical insurance is died to each person's job, if you lose your job, or change jobs, they may or may not offer medical insurance. Another pitfall is that, until the ACA - Affordable Care Act - went through the insurance companies would not cover you for pre-existent conditions. For example, if you had a heart attack and a year later you change insurance companies, the new company will not cover you for anything related to the heart. The ACA is what the Republicans (Conservatives) want to overturn giving even more power to the insurance companies. 

 

Insurance companies have very sneaky ways of lining politicians' pockets so it is just bordering on legal. So DO NOT think your politicians will be immune to them; they won't be. If you let these vampires into your system they will drain all the blood from you.

 

The other people you need to be aware of, should the insurance companies even get a toe in the door (much less a foot!) is the organisations calling themselves 'charitable' or 'not-for-profit'. They make even more money from the unsuspecting patient. Just remember if large enough salaries are paid to the top people and just enough remuneration to the lower workers to keep them working (the ones who really do the work) ANYthing can be 'not for profit' or appear 'charitable'. It is a huge rip-off of the hard-working, everyday person.

 

I'll give you an example. I was at a meeting at one of the better hospitals I worked at. It was attached to the clinic but management of each was separate. I was working in the clinic but my patients were mostly those in the hospital. The clinic was 'for profit' and the powers that be were trying to convince the doctors (partners/owners of the clinic) to go non profit.

 

Physicians really panic here if they think they're going to lose money. It was explained to them that being non-profit would give them huge tax breaks. And operating expenses could be bought at a much lower rate, leaving considerably more money for their salaries - because as long as they did not show a profit by year end, they would be 'non profit'!

 

Of course they jumped at it. It did nothing for the patient; there were no price reductions. If anything prices were increased. The charitable organisations do exactly the same thing. The only difference is they're hiding behind such things as churches. Yes, churches here own hospitals, nursing homes etc. Who carries the brunt of all this? The patient. The everyday citizen, the worker, the disabled whether physical or mental.

 

To get in the door, the insurance companies always go to the politicians first to convince them they can save money. Figures that look very convincing are produced, showing an offer 'you just couldn't pass up'!

 

They get the contract for 5-10 years but after one or maybe two years, they come back with another set of figures and a sad story, showing how they are going down the hole and have to increase the cost to the government just ever so slightly - playing on their good nature. It is granted then in about the same timescale, they come back again needing even more.

 

The politicians figure they have invested so much already, they can't afford to lose their investment so they pay up again. By now it's costing more than it was before they got involved. At the end of the contract, if the companies figure there is still moroe blood they can drain, they will offer an even more costly contract. By this tme the amount invested and the fear of sky-rocketing costs result in the politicians sign for it.

If the UK adopts this system you will be in a far worse mess than the US; you will become like a third world country. If you're lucky enough for the insurance companies to decide they have drained ALL the blood possible, they'll walk away.  But believe me, there will be another one waiting in the wings to find some more juices to drain from you.

 

I do not want this to happen to people in Banburyshire or anywhere in Britain. I don't wand you to suffer this kind of life but it will happen if you do not STOP IT NOW.

Britain's healthcare system is used as an example all the time over he1re - by the people working tirelessly to change things to a British way of providing healthcare. In the past 10 or more years, physicians, some hospitals and many healthcare workers in a variety of fields are trying very hard to change to a NHS-type care - and yes, even some politicians!

So my final word of advice is

 

Do not let the Vampires in!

 

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 

Dawn Griffis is English, 75, retired RN NP. She lives in Vermont with Mike, her husband of over 52 years. She has written four memoirs, three about nursing, the fifth soon to be published is about her English gardening adventures. Dawn and Mike have two daughters, six grandchildren and two great grand daughters.

They lost their retirement and savings during the George W Bush era helped by Sod’s Law! They live on a small Social Security Pension; Dawn receives a very small OAP each month from her time working in England. Both paid into SS their entire working life in America and into Medicare from time it was required. Mike receives his medical care through the Veterans' hospital, being eligible from his US Air Force time. Dawn receives her care at the local hospital/clinic, using her Medicare eligibility but this still costs her an additional $147 a month to a private insurance company and it will remain that way all her life. If she doesn’t pay it, she loses all her clinic and medication cover. Even that only pays 80%; for the remaining 20% she has to pay for additional private insurance costing another $40 a month, plus additional co-pay (obligatory patient contribution) for medication and seeing a doctor, treatments and test payments. In America it can be a cruel world and not one that NHS patients can possibly imagine. But it is just around the corner.