What a terrible thing to have to write but sadly it is true. Please let me explain.
On 4th December I was scheduled to have triple heart bypass surgery but the procedure was postponed just before I was due to be taken into theatre. I would add that the operation was due to be undertaken at a private hospital.
I am awaiting a new date for my surgery but do not anticipate that it will be any time soon. Why? Because the NHS have block booked all of the beds in private hospitals because of COVID. Yet the vast majority of these beds are empty as are most of the specially built Nightingale Hospitals.
Further, all heart surgery that would have been undertaken under the NHS has similarly been postponed.
If I can’t pay to have the operation, what chance have NHS patients awaiting similar surgery got?
The only way I am likely to have the surgery any time soon is as an emergency patient, that is if I have a heart attack.
What a sorry state of affairs.
Written by
Disney59
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I appreciate your frustration, but there's another way of looking at this. Basically bypass patients fall into two broad categories, those with stable angina where the operation will alleviate the symptoms of their angina, and those with unstable angina where the operation will both alleviate the symptoms of their angina and also significantly improve their life expectancy.
I imagine the doctors have judged that you're in the first category, stable angina where the symptoms occur upon exertion and can be relived with spray. It's of course sub optimal that anyone's operation is postponed, but the doctors must have determined that you're at no materially greater risk of dropping down dead than most other people of your age...and surely that has to be pretty good news!
Of course the obvious flaw in your cunning plan is those inconsiderate ?%$£@&*'s that jump all the queue's because they have a Cardiac Arrest, pushing those who suffered a HA down the queue, again!?!?
Be very careful of what you wish for !! Have you ordered a very mild Heart Attack or the Full Monty I hope it is the Mild One because there is no Guarantee that you will survive the Full Monty.
You have to work on the basis the Medics have evaluated the Risk and it was felt you will survive waiting awhile longer not easy to take but the way it is.
My personal opinion is that the NHS is running scared why Because the 1st time around they the NHS made a b**ls of the management of the Crisis .
Its a sorry state of affairs that the NHS can't be called to account as if it was a private company, I am not advocating it becomes a Private Company but the Management really does need an overall, and needs calling to account.
I clapped for the NHS but I was really clapping for the Nurses, Doctors, Care Workers not the whole of the NHS. We are now in a position of having to be Grateful for the Service it's not an entitlement anymore those days have long gone. So be Grateful you will be done when they can get round to you.
Sounds Cynical but that's how I feel
Hands Face Space Vaccinate When this is Over and it will be Over We will not be able to recognise the NHS, it will not be anything like we had before the pandemic. Yesterday I heard a Senior Ambulance Service Representative say consider calling your GP before 999 what world she is living in I don't know. On my GPs phone it's say "Should you have Chest Pain or be short of Breath phone 999
We all do however pay for the service we are having to be grateful for. Had there been a better allocation of ICU beds there would not have been this performance of avoiding the fact that the service has been cut back by years of austerity and individuals have been having life saving surgery postponed for years - but not all at once. Yes the service snd it’s managers should be held to account.
But you don't need hindsight to manage an organisation. The NHS is supposedly managed by some of the best brains in the country paid Film Star wages.
They are paid to have foresight not always Fire Fighting which is what they do and not very well, hence the building is crumbling.
Next time you see someone from the NHS ( whatever that is ) just listen to the negatives . We can't do that we cant manage this or that we don't have the Staff. Well Mr NHS manager you will never have the Staff to deal with a Pandemic how would you pay for them when the Pandemic is over ???
No one ever says we will manage the situation.
As for the NHS is starved for cash well it will eat as much money as you can throw at it without getting any better. Back to being cynical the next step is a subscription to Dr Google or just tell Alexa your symptoms and she will decide if you need a consultant. I don't think that scenario is to far away
Oh sorry we have it now it's called a GP Practice !!!
One thing this pandemic has hi lighted is the poor organisation capability within the Civil Service and the NHS, PHE et al
I just feel Let Down does no one in the Media have anything Positive to to ask a Govt Ministers instead of " You Said 22 weeks ago etc ah caught you out with that one.
Sorry for the Rant just peeded off with the lot of them.
I think your frustration is hindering your objectivity. I think that given a finite amount of money and an emerging understanding of the pandemic that the NHS and NHS management have performed well.
How do you plan with so much uncertainty and lack of knowledge about the trajectory of the virus and how many might need treatment at any one time? The answer is you can’t. The best you can do is to remain flexible and as responsive as possible.
You have already had some great replies. It’s not a great situation and I hope I can share a perspective which can offer some context.
I was deemed needing an urgent bypass in May this year (during the first lockdown) due to a wholly blocked LAD which could not be fixed by stents. The bypass took place during the second lockdown in November under very strict control conditions due to risk of covid.
In summary, I had to wait 6 months for an ‘urgent’ bypass and my situation was monitored/managed by my cardiologist during this period. Communication with the hospital is critical, keep them appraised of your condition and any changes.
Even waiting 6 months I was fortunate with sequence of events which allowed me to have the bypass within a very small window of opportunity before things got worse.
You really do not want a HA which can cause permanent lasting damage to your heart, keep your cardiologist appraised and hopefully you will be treated sooner rather than later.
Your situation is similar to those who are deemed not sufficiently obese (BMI below a specific threshold) to merit bariatric surgery. So those people have to deteriorate further before the system will do the surgery which gives them a fighting chance of saving their lives. There are many other examples (besides bariatric surgery) in which such distortion occurs, where the health of people has to deteriorate or become urgent before the treatment/surgery which they need can be given!
I am in exactly the same position waiting for an urgent bypass for the last 3 months. The surgeon says there are many people in my situation. Very sad state I’d affairs
Please be careful what you wish for!!!You cardiologist must have deemed you as one of the healthier patients on his list which is a blessing. I was diagnosed as requiring urgent surgery in July, got my double bypass in September in the wonderful Papworth NHS hospital in Cambridge, i was discharged after 5 days, brilliant, then i suffered some very serious complications and several trips to A&E i was diagnosed with first complication Dressler’s syndrome, following the next 5 weeks i was having what felt like heart attacks every day up to 7 times a day, each visit to A&E i was checked over and it was presumed to down to Dresslers until i had 3 episodes in 2 hours and in A&E they actually saw they were heart attacks, so i was having up to 7 heart attacks a day for 5 weeks, never been in so much pain in my life and i’ve had children and some by C-section. I was blue light transferred to the cardiac unit where I jumped the queue in there into theatre to have stents fitted, other patients understood the emergency of my case as they were routinely having there’s, one of my grafts had failed that was causing all my problems, i am almost 4 weeks post second op and recovering well and I will be eternally grateful to the NHS staff that looked after me during this pandemic.
I wish you well for your procedure and recovery, we are here on this forum for support. Stay well and take care
When I was having a long wait for an Aortic Valve replacement in 2011 I went to see a surgeon privately in mid December. He quoted 8 weeks for the operation privately but said he could get me on to his NHS list in 13 so I decided to wait. The following week his secretary phoned to say he could bring his team in on Boxing Day if I still wanted it privately. I decided to wait but the 13 weeks stretched out to 6 months.
My surgeon offered to do privately the following week at a cost of £20k or wait on NHS list until January. I have chosen to wait until January and pay privately if the op is delayed in January. They will do immediately if I have another heart attack or my life is in danger. The constant pain nausea dizziness is debilitating and have lost 3 stone in weight and I ma now so weak and frail.
I agree with you Prada47, and I can’t believe given the vast military resources we have they haven’t been fully utilized in a more proactive and structured way, particularly in terms of logistics.
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