Left to Die?

1 minute read time.

The NHS can really leave me feeling massively let down sometimes. Some say things to you that they either don't mean or they are too forgetful to actually do their jobs properly. It's just so aggravating. 

Perhaps they don't realise how much we hold on to things, especially what is likely to happen next with our care. When I get told to make an appointment for 6 months time so they can run blood tests and scans, you can bet that those words will rattle around my head everyday for the next 6 months waiting for the chance to get another look at whether the disease has returned and progressed or not. There is nothing else to hang onto. 

So when you ask why the appointment is over when they haven't even mentioned taking blood from me, and all you get back is a confused look, suspicion started to run wild inside you. Pressed about the scans I was told I'd be entitled to given that a primary site for my cancer, that has been labelled 'skin cancer' for lack of insight and a better 'best guess', has never been identified, I was then told that follow-up scans aren't routine. Deception seems to be quite routine however. Lucky us. 

They'll only offer you a scan when it's too late. It's just a guide for the surgeons. We're not interested in helping to actually keep you alive. We're quite happy with our 'ignorance is bliss' attitude. After-all, we're not the ones with cancer.

I then get told that they're not even sure how I would go about getting a scan privately. I suppose I can believe that. I can see there attitude is that they don't want to waste money on patients who don't present with symptoms. So you're gonna have to come back when you have tumours popping out of every nook and cranny. Riiiiiiiiight.

Now it's up to the oncologist who told me to chase up a clinical trial, that I soon discovered had been running for 4 years and was about to end in the next 2 months. Gee, thanks dude. That's so incredibly fucking helpful of you. More deceit. 

Might be time to find a more bothered hospital in London, than this bullshit. 

Anonymous
  • FormerMember
    FormerMember

    Hi - If you find a London hospital that's more bothered about it's patients will you let me know!!!!

    I'm under a London hospital for a different type of cancer, and although I'm sure my Oncologist is a very clever, scientific man - he has the bedside manner of Victor Meldrew.   Just wanted to say my mum had malignant melanoma about 15 years ago - she was a private patient of a Dr Peter Harper, an oncologist in Harley St - and she had scans every year up until about 5 or 6 years ago.  I'm sure you could get a referral to see him privately and pay for an annual scan?

    Good luck, Jeanie x

     

     

  • FormerMember
    FormerMember

    The thing that really gets me is that I know of people who had the same cancer as myself, they weren't offered a single scan or test for 3 years after surgery, and by then it was too late. 

    I know people in South Africa, a 3rd world country who, after having oral chemo treatment, still get blood tests every six months, 6 years after their initial treatment. And that's not privately funded. 

    I can put up with bad bedside manner. But the idea of having to go to a 3rd world country to receive actual care says a lot about the NHS.

  • FormerMember
    FormerMember

    You could move to Wales, Ray, they get scans there!  I could see Wales if I stood on my roof, but no scans for me either, I get the same "only if you present with symptoms"... great! Like you I wonder whether I'd have to start fitting or turn yellow before they did anything. 

    If you really desperately wanted a scan I'm sure if could be arranged through BUPA or similar.  I have private medical insurance and did get two scans a few years back, they were about £800 a pop.

    Marsha x

  • FormerMember
    FormerMember

    I can cope with that. I think I'd need more of a reason than an £800 annual scan to move to Wales. Like say I was head-over-heels in love with a beautiful welsh woman. I could happen. 

  • FormerMember
    FormerMember

    I hear Catherine Jenkins is free.....

    Is there anything specific that's worrying you at the moment? Or just the feeling we all get of being short-changed in the cancer stakes?  It seems like we're the poor cousins, doesn't it? EVERYBODY seems to get regularly scanned except us :(

    Marsha x