I HAVE just returned from the funeral of yet another friend who has died from an explosive cancer for which there was no known risk. He developed several metastases from a melanoma that he never knew he had and for which there was no primary lesion to spread from. His presentation and development, including resistance to a new immunotherapy regimen that is effective in more than 80 per cent of patients, was very similar to two other friends who developed bone metastases at the same time, as well another friend who developed a ‘turbo-charged’ (as his doctor called it) lymphoma.
Only one of the doctors who treated my friends, I was told, asked about their patients’ covid vaccine histories. The one who did was forthright in telling my friend that this was almost certainly the cause as he was seeing dozens of similar cases. Shockingly, all four patients had the boosters only so they could travel overseas and be covered by insurance!
This sad reflection is heightened by the email and text messages I have recently received from my GP telling me ‘to stay safe and get my spring booster’. No waiting list for that. Meanwhile, the NHS has taken two years so far to get me on a waiting list for what was non-urgent surgery but which will soon become so at this rate!
It also reminded me that a decade ago I was involved in writing the health manifesto for UKIP which could have helped solve such issues if it had not been ignored. Unlike my colleagues I felt that ‘free at the point of service’ was a major cause of NHS failure. I highlighted the main issues in a 2020 article I wrote for the Spectator called ‘The four crumbling pillars of the NHS’, in which I said that chucking billions at the NHS won’t solve its structural issues. I went on to elucidate a further six problems for a special session on the NHS on the Iain Dale show on LBC.
Last weekend we heard that the NHS has written off £250million owed by overseas patients who have apparently just disappeared. That is in addition to hiring thousands of DEI administrators at the cost of over £40million a year when the front-line services are collapsing.
I asked my colleagues to find out why GPs are so hard to see. Surprisingly, this revealed several GPs keen to work only to find there are no jobs due to cheaper replacements such as physician associates (PAs), who have been the subject of many allegations of fatal misdiagnoses.
Appalling morale is present everywhere. Two GPs in different parts of the country gave me the same 80 per cent figure when I asked them the percentage of patients that they see who should not be wasting their time. A similar uniformity of only 10 per cent is given when asked how many of the patients to whom they issue notes for sickness and benefits are justified.
The fact that many young doctors still do not know where (not just which speciality but which city or town) they will be working in a few weeks’ time came to the fore this week with a BBC report. I am amazed that this has not been addressed and surely accounts in part for the enormous number of junior doctors heading for Australia and Canada.
Interestingly, the jobs they will be taking in Australia are courtesy of the ludicrous Australian Medical Council who have been busy striking off good doctors for treating covid patients well and not, as instructed, doing nothing.
I suppose at least the Department of Health have woken up to the fact that NHS England is worse than useless, duplicating most of the errors elsewhere and clearly not fit for purpose, as I found out from personal experience.
Meanwhile, I keep receiving calls and emails from friends and patients as to whether they should get the boosters that their GPs are bullying them to get. I feel like repeating the official NHS line that of course they should, as the government bought so many jabs that they should feel duty bound to help them use them up!
