21st Century Health Care?

Upon arrival back at the hovel, a few days ago I perceived that the answer 'phone was flashing a message. Pulse racing with anticipation, I scrolled through the interminable menu at BT to retrieve it and lo' it was my friendly neighbourhood Health Centre, inviting me to call them to arrange a 'health check'. How sweet, how kind, that they should be so concerned about my health and well being (sic).

This same provider of Primary Care, that fails to provide any help or support for she whom I care for, in the lack of any provision of testing strips to monitor her blood glucose, will not prescribe any Colpermin for my IBS, failed to help with my severe PTSD beyond a referral to a community mental nurse for an assessment, eight weeks down the line, when I was already in such anguish that I could barely function. Never reminds us of the need to get an HBa1c test for my loves NIDDM (Type 11 Diabetes). Looks askance when I suggest a (25)OHD test for her, to ensure her levels (Vitamin D3) are improving from the appalling low level of last year. In fact unable (or unwilling) to support any of the interventions that are useful or sustaining of health, but can find time and funds to fulfill the the needs of the prospective rewards available under the Quality and Outcomes Framework, if they can undertake a number of tests (on me) that will assist in achieving the practise goals.

I gave the matter some thought, for about ten seconds and thought 'f**k 'em, why should I help them earn some extra cash when they provide no real support, for mine and my partners problems. She will not take Diabetes drugs, and prefers to control NIDDM, with diet, exercise and supplements. Yet, to ensure that this is containing the disease, which it is, we need to undertake at least two or three tests per day. The cost of the test strips is £28.00 per 50. By buying on-line I can reduce this to £21.00 per pack, but that is still £31.50 per month. Vit D3 and Omega 3 supplements plus Vit C and ALA adds at least another £20 a month. Add to that my Colpermin at £21.00 per month and before we know where we are a £100 is gone. I do get a free prescription for the rather dubious pleasure of dosing my self for Glaucoma, which I've had for 25 years, with a prostaglandin analogue. But hey, I've been paying the State for over 40years, with taxes that make my eyes water, is it not about time I got a little back? But no, if you don't take hypoglycemic agents, you don't get free strips; it's a sort of punishment perceived somewhere in the DH, that is basically saying to those who won't tread a certain path, to the wheelchair into the dialysis suite, that we won't play ball with you. This is despite the fact that all the indicators are that a 'low carb diet' is just as effective but less dangerous than the DH recommended protocols.

No, the simple truth is that the NHS and all pretty much who sail in her, have their heads stuck so far up their own backsides and that of 'Big Pharma' that not only can they not see the wood for the trees, they lost sight of the wood itself. They are not interested in outcomes, only dubious 'surrogate' markers of alleged, sometimes invented diseases. When some 'wet behind the ears' locum GP tells me that fat (not even cholesterol), could be clogging up my arteries, and cause heart disease, and that 130/60 is a high BP, I feel like strangling her with her own stethoscope. So if they want to monitor my BP and do a lipids test, and ascertain my alcohol intake, more to make the what, £136 a point for QOF (average would be about £250,000 a practise all told) than for any regard for my health. Then I could be lectured about my lifestyle, at a level about that of a 12 year old, so I could then retort that 'I wear shoes older than you and was studying biology and biochemistry before you were born' and 'you can't change the rules of human metabolism just because of the rubbish you learned by rote a med' school'. Life is too short and I need to keep my BP down (allegedly).