Rationed At The Point Of Delivery

How long will it take for people to realise that British health care is rationed, not free, at the point of delivery? That our health "system" prioritises political imperatives over the objective of healing the sick?

More grim proof of these truths came with news today that Dorothy Simpson, a 61-year-old grandmother from Yorkshire, is to be denied a £5,000 operation to cure her potentially debilitating heart condition because a hospital guideline deems she is too old.

Perhaps the NHS might consider funding her treatment out of cost savings achievable by abandoning its propaganda activities: the notorious anti-smoking campaigns, the ongoing campaign against the overweight and the incipient campaign to outlaw drinking?

Perish the thought! British people are stupid and unworthy, and we must be hectored and coerced into living in the manner prescribed by the apparatus of the state. In fact, as the then health secretary declared a year ago, treatment should be denied to those very groups to support them in their decision to mend their ways.

The motto of British medicine seems fast to be becoming, "denying treatment to those who need it most".

Or what about the brainwave of some cancer specialists last year - that patients who can afford it should be allowed to pay for treatments which government rationing meant they couldn't get for free? Wouldn't this free up more tax money for deserving cases like Dorothy Simpson?

Again, perish the thought! British health care is to be resourced through an unwieldy, inefficient and inhumane centralised structure, or not at all.

The NHS will not be fixed until there is widespread recognition that it is, in some ways, broken. I wonder: what are the chances of that happening during Dorothy Simpson's lifetime - however long the bureaucrats decide that ought to be?